


Poison Or Medicine

by Anonymous_Introvert78, MinYun



Series: Poison or Medicine [1]
Category: SEVENTEEN (Band)
Genre: Aftermath of Torture, Alternate Universe - Gang World, Alternate Universe - Gangsters, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Blood and Gore, But it's there, Chwe Hansol | Vernon Being An Idiot, Explosions, Gun Violence, Here we go, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Homophobia, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, Improvisational Medicine, It isn't graphic, Joshua is a little shit, Jun hui makes everyone uncomfortable almost all the time, Kidnapping, LET'S GET IT, M/M, Major Character Injury, Medical Student Yoon Jeonghan, Panic Attacks, Past Child Abuse, Past Rape/Non-con, Protective Choi Seungcheol | S.Coups, Shooting, Slow Burn, Stabbing, Torture, Vernon has a rocket launcher, Yoon Jeonghan-centric, but only for a little bit, field medicine, need i say more?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-09
Updated: 2020-05-02
Packaged: 2021-02-28 03:02:29
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 30
Words: 118,366
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22637218
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Anonymous_Introvert78/pseuds/Anonymous_Introvert78, https://archiveofourown.org/users/MinYun/pseuds/MinYun
Summary: “Put him in the trunk. We’ll deal with him later. S.Coups is on his way and this is one meeting we can’t afford to fuck up.”orBeing a med student was exhausting. The torturous hours, the slurring drunks, the constant swarm of patients with foul smells and equally foul mouths, the bodily fluids being projected in every direction, and the mafia carrying out an execution on their doorstep. But even though he never pulled the trigger, Jeonghan was the one who had committed the worst sin of all. He had seen their faces. And so he must die.
Relationships: Choi Seungcheol | S.Coups/Yoon Jeonghan
Series: Poison or Medicine [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1733302
Comments: 549
Kudos: 1025
Collections: 17 hours





	1. Pretty Boys

**Author's Note:**

> Hello, everybody! This is the first time either of us are doing a collab but we worked really, really hard on this and I don't know about MinYun but I had a lot of fun. Hopefully this isn't one of those cliché romance mafia fics but then again, if it is, who doesn't love those? We love you all!

Jeonghan often wondered which, of all the days he’d found himself wishing he was just somebody else, could be considered the worst of his life. There hadn’t exactly been countless of them but there were a few that stuck out.

Maybe that time when he was eight and his parents forgot to pick him up from school, leaving him sitting on the curb, dejected and cold, until one of the teachers eventually found him on her way to her car.

Maybe that time when he turned fourteen and they just forgot his birthday altogether, claiming they had been too busy with work and the fact that they were raising him should be the only gift he needed when he finally plucked up the courage to remind them. 

Maybe the time they went out to dinner while he was studying in his room, abandoning him in a house with no food and not even a note explaining where they’d suddenly disappeared to.

But the most likely answer was that terrible, terrible day when he’d confessed to the both of them that he’d rather pursue a career in medicine than follow them in law.

He wanted to help people, not prosecute innocents and let criminals roam free just because they happened to have a decent amount of money in their pockets.

His parents were furious at him for weeks after that particular announcement but, eventually, they got over it. They were supposedly rational lawyers after all.

Jeonghan had always lived a comfortable existence. His family was well off so he knew he didn’t exactly have the right to complain since they paid for everything he had ever needed. He frequently asked himself if maybe he should just cut them some slack but, frankly, they were pretty shitty people. 

Sighing against the bitter cold which turned his breath into wisps of smoky steam, he pushed his long hair back from his face and wound his scarf around his neck for the third time.

Allowing his locks to grow longer had previously been an act of defiance but now it was just a way to save time and money on haircuts since he had no time for such mundane activities these days.

The nights were getting chillier and his shifts seemed to be lasting longer with each passing day. Apparently, every sick or injured person in Seoul knew exactly when Yoon Jeonghan was on call because then and only then would they start shuffling into the emergency department in unstoppable droves of wailing and weeping, just to make his day a little bit harder.

He groaned as he crossed the road outside the hospital, remembering that he’d left his car further down the street earlier that day since the parking had been packed to bursting when he’d arrived.

He had been on his feet for twelve straight hours, he hadn’t slept in eighteen and every inconvenience felt like a personal attack.

Like he usually did when he found himself walking alone, he fished his phone from his pocket and dialled his roommate’s number.

Hyuk was a short and spritely boy from Ulsan who just so happened to be doing his residency in the same hospital as Jeonghan but his shifts always seemed lighter and he looked as if he’d never had a bad day in his life. Maybe that was the result of coming from a loving home.

“Hannie!” came the gleeful cheer from the other end of the line, accompanied by some sort of commotion in the background that Jeonghan chalked down to the bustling of commuters.

“Hey, I’m walking to my car …” he shot back, sending a loose piece of gravel flying off the edge of the sidewalk with the toe of his shoe. “Keep me company?”

“Wish I could, Han, but I’m boarding soon. Didn’t I tell you I’m going home for the weekend?”

Right, he had forgotten Hyuk was flying back to Jeju to see his family. He didn’t have any Friday or Monday classes and had rescheduled his shifts just so he could celebrate his sister’s birthday with her.

“Oh, right, I’m sorry … I’ll let you go then,” Jeonghan mumbled, pouting a little behind the folds of his scarf as he glanced down the poorly-lit side street.

He had always hated walking alone. Apparently having long hair and a “feminine” face made him the ideal target for drunkards and other jerks looking for somebody to harass. It was for that very reason that being by himself made him more than a little uncomfortable.

“It’s fine, Han. Be safe, yeah? Keep a body cam,” Hyuk chuckles, oblivious to the eye roll Jeonghan replied with. “Go live on Instagram or something!”

“Right. Bye, Hyuck.”

He ended the call and, despite how pathetic and cowardly it made him feel, opened the camera so he could start a video. Even though it was stupid, it did help soothe the building anxiety by giving him something to focus on. It was almost like Hyuk was with him … sort of.

A light snow had dusted the ground and Jeonghan tossed his scarf into a final loop around himself before starting his short and regrettably unavoidable walk to the car, filming his feet and watching the icing sugar imprints he left behind him.

The sharpness of the wind stung his nose and left his eyes watering slightly and he could already feel a cold clogging up his airway as he raised his phone to capture the stars blinking in the inky pin cushion above him.

He could see the underpass now and if he squinted a little through the darkness, he could just about make out the shape of his car on the other side, too.

There was the low rumble of nearby voices somewhere out of sight and he felt a small smile of relief stretching over his chapped lips. The silence in the street had started fraying his nerves.

Spurred on by the prospect of finally getting to rest for the first time in almost twenty-four hours, he quickened his pace, rounding the bushes at the mouth of the underpass and stepping into the open just in time to see a man pull out a gun, take aim and shoot.

Jeonghan felt like his heart stopped beating, right there, right then.

His brain was trying to process what it had just witnessed but his hand was still raised, phone trembling in a white-knuckled grip as the murder before him was solidified on tape.

The gun must have had one of those silencers on because there was no earth-shattering _BANG_ that had Jeonghan’s eardrums rupturing and a high-pitched ringing noise accosting his sensory neurones. There was just a soft whooshing _pop._

But even if the sounds had been dampened, the smell was overpowering. It was a kind of musky burning stench, similar to that which lingered in the aftermath of a firework display, and for a moment, Jeonghan allowed himself to believe that the whole thing was just a joke.

That was it. It was just a cherry bomb. Any moment now, somebody would emerge from the other end of the underpass, clutching their side and wheezing with laughter, filming their friends’ shocked expressions.

But as Jeonghan’s eyes slowly slid downwards to settle on the body sprawled in the snow, its head a bloody mess of flesh, brain matter and skull fragments, his reeling mind finally started to accept that he’d just witnessed an execution.

“Hey … Who’s there?” someone – the man with the fucking gun – yelled, and Jeonghan felt all his organs suddenly go into overdrive with the panic that attacked his body.

_Shit … Shit, shit, shit …_

He ducked, his feet catching on the gravelled ground as he frantically scrambled back into the bushes, praying to a God he’d never really believed in that he hadn’t been seen.

Crouching in the undergrowth, he pressed his fingers to his mouth, trying to silence the harshness of his breathing as the soft crunch of boots against snow got louder and louder.

“What’s goin’ on?”

“I coulda sworn I saw somethin’.”

“Well, check it out then.”

They were getting closer. Jeonghan could hear them: those bodiless footsteps stalking towards him, the gun still smoking from its last murder, already preparing itself to take another victim.

With his mind in a complete state of panic, his body acted of its own accord as he shoved his hand into his back pocket and clamped down on the key fob wedged into his jeans. Willing his lungs to just shut the fuck up, he found the right button with his thumb and pressed down.

There was the unmistakable click of a car door lock and the faded blinking glow of headlights announcing their awakening, startling the small group of men still surrounding the mangled corpse. 

“Holy shit,” one of them cursed, eliciting a laugh from another. 

The footsteps stopped, paused and then began to retreat, sparking a painfully loud gasp of premature relief from Jeonghan’s throat. He hadn’t realised how profusely he’d been sweating until his phone slipped from the slickness of his palm, making a soft _thud_ as it hit the frozen leaves.

Whispering a breathless curse, he started forwards to retrieve it and that was when his foot caught on a tree root protruding from the ground.

He managed to stifle the yelp that threatened to burst from his lips but the sound his body made as it fell, sticks snapping and his body thudding against the dirt, was far, _far,_ too loud to pass by those murderers without being heard.

Why hadn’t he just called the police?

“Hey!”

He didn’t bother trying to hide this time. He just ran.

Staggering to his feet, he crashed out of the bushes and broke into the most ferocious sprint of his life, the soles of his shoes slipping and sliding in the steadily melting snow and his ribs already starting to sting with a razor-sharp stitch.

If he could just get back to the hospital … If he could just get back to the hospital … If he could just get back to the hospital …

He was being chased and they were gaining on him. He could hear the sound of their pounding feet increasing behind him and he cursed his father for never permitting him to indulge in sports as a child.

The man had always considered such extra-curricular activities to be a waste of time, only attended by thugs and Neanderthals who were too stupid to stay shut up in a library with their nose in a book, the way Jeonghan had been raised.

He wasn’t going to outrun these people but he tried anyway because he knew too well that, the moment he got caught, he was dead.

His jacket and his bag were weighing him down and his scarf restricted his breathing and his shoes were not suited to pelting down slickened side streets in the snow but he pressed on, begging the hospital to come into sight at any moment. 

The wind was knocked out of him with the force of a speeding train as two bodies collided, sending them both crashing to the ground with a bone-jarring impact.

Barely swallowing his yelp of fear and pain, Jeonghan tried to brace his hands against the floor, preparing to push upwards, but whoever had tackled him was much stronger. With a single tug, they flipped him over onto his back and sat astride his hips, giving him a clear view up the barrel of the handgun they clutched in a bulbous fist. 

“Who are you?” the man growled and Jeonghan felt his mouth flapping open and closed as he desperately tried to think up an answer that wouldn’t get him killed. “Who sent you to spy on us?”

That wouldn’t cause him to suffer the same fate as that poor man back in the underpass.

“Tell me!” his attacker roared viciously, digging the still-burning barrel of his gun into the centre of the prey’s forehead.

Jeonghan could do nothing but stare up at him, his eyes wide and his vision blurry with the tears he had no control over.

He was not a coward. He was the med student who stuck his hands into patient’s bodies to grab hold of severed arteries and dodged the occasional punch that was thrown his way by a grieving family member.

Very rarely did he find himself actually paralysed with terror, but now that was all he felt. Terror.

“Fine. Keep your mouth shut. The boss will make you talk. I heard he likes pretty boys.”

Jeonghan barely had time to process those words before there was a bruising grip on his arm and he was being dragged upwards, struggling to get his feet under him before his captor was hauling him back towards that underpass and the corpse that lay there.

His knees were skinned and bleeding, his hands were scraped and a twinge of pain sparked at his ankle every time he put weight on it but it wasn’t like he had a choice with the forcefulness of his abduction.

He’d thought he’d managed to run a decent distance before being caught but, as he limped and stumbled alongside the gunman, he found that they reached the scene of the murder much more quickly than he’d expected, particularly with his injured ankle.

Maybe it was the impending doom and promise of a painful death that made time seem as if it was moving at double speed. 

There was the glint of a streetlamp reflected off something shiny in the bushes and Jeonghan just about recognised his phone lying abandoned among the frosted leaves.

Knowing that it could very well get him killed but desperate to at least have some hope of escape in his grasp, he deliberately grazed his toe against the ground and pretended to trip, throwing his hand on top of his phone as he fell.

“Get the fuck up!” came the infuriated hiss in his ear, a greasy and grubby hand twisting itself in his hair and wrenching him back onto his feet.

The pain sparked more tears in the corner of his eyes and he scrambled to obey, scalp stinging from the unnecessary pull and hand quivering like a leaf as he clumsily shoved his phone back into his jeans pocket.

He limped only a few more steps before a kick to the back of his knees forced him down, his already-bleeding hands sustaining further injury when they scuffed the ground for the third time that night.

“He was watching us,” his captor relayed just before two shiny black boots stepped into Jeonghan’s line of sight. “Wouldn’t tell me who he works for.”

Jeonghan kept his head down, resisting the urge to screw his eyes shut and scream for help. So long as he did what these people asked then, surely, they would let him go. Surely, they would understand that he had nothing to do with this whole affair. Right?

Something loomed over him, casting his trembling figure in shadow and he could literally feel the whisper of hot cigarette breath on the top of his head before fingers clamped a vice around his chin and forced his eyes up.

The man was wearing a mask and a ballcap, concealing everything save for his eyes, but Jeonghan couldn’t look at that part of him. Couldn’t look into the irises of a cold-blooded murderer.

“Who. Sent. You. Here?” the gangster whispered, emphasising every word with a tap of his finger against his victim’s jaw.

“Nobody,” Jeonghan stammered nervously. “Nobody sent me. I’m a doctor. I work at the hospital. I was just on my way home. I didn’t see anything. I swear. I didn’t see anything.”

There was a pause. A painfully long, painfully quiet pause, and he couldn’t shake the feeling that he was being inspected by this grotesque man crouching in front of him with his clothes stinking of smoke and his fingernails digging into Jeonghan’s skin.

He felt like his heart was going to explode right out of his chest. His blood was going to boil. His skin was going to melt. His lungs were going to collapse. His brain was going to burst and start oozing out of his ears. 

And then:

“Put him in the trunk. We’ll deal with him later. S.Coups is on his way and this is one meeting we can’t afford to fuck up.”

Jeonghan’s hearing cut out immediately after the word, ‘trunk’, and he thought that maybe his heart might have just stopped beating at that very moment. That maybe it had decided death was better than what was about to happen.

It wasn’t until both his hands were seized and forced behind his back, something stiff and leather and alarmingly similar to a belt binding his wrists together that he finally snapped out of his terrified stupor.

“What?” he yelped as he was once again manhandled to his feet. “No! I didn’t see anything! I swear, I didn’t see anything! Let me go! I didn’t see anything! Please! I swear, I didn’t see anything! Please, let me go!”

He tried digging his heels into the ground, tried shaking off the hands that were clasping his elbows, tried screaming for help at the top of his lungs but nothing worked. They were too big, they were too strong, their hands clamped down over his mouth to muffle his voice.

There was absolutely nothing he could do to stop himself from being dealt a dizzying blow to the side of the head and stuffed into the back of a car, legs forced to bend uncomfortably in order to accommodate his entire body in such a cramped space.

“Please …” he whispered one last time just before the trunk was slammed shut and all the light vanished from his world. 


	2. Ninjas, Thugs, Civilians

Jeonghan had always prided himself on knowing exactly what to do in a crisis. He was the guy with the answers. Top of his class, tutoring his peers in his free time and even working as a consult in the hospital clinic.

He could list all the Greek Gods and Titans in alphabetical order, he knew the second closest star to the Earth just off the top of his head, he could recite every single animal on the extinction protection list and he could even reassemble a remote-controlled car in a matter of minutes.

If ever there was a question, Jeonghan almost always held the solution.

So how the hell had he ended up stuffed in the trunk of a car at two o’clock on a Friday morning, his hands bound behind his back with a belt and his head haunted with the image of that man’s bloodied corpse sprawled in the snow?

Everything around him reeked strongly of metal and pitch oil. It was stuffy, cramped, dark and cold and no matter how desperately he wriggled about on his side, he couldn’t reach the phone slotted into his back pocket.

The belt was cutting into his wrists, rubbing his skin raw and leaving the wounds open to a horrific stinging pain that had him biting down on his bottom lip in an attempt to stifle his gasps of discomfort.

Shuffling into a slightly more advantageous position, he thrust his foot into one of the taillights like he’d seen the hero do in a movie once but the only result he got was the sharp, harsh rap of knuckles on the trunk just above his head.

His breath froze in his throat, lungs shrivelling up in fear as he awaited whatever punishment was coming his way, but then the minutes stretched on and he heard nothing more from the world outside his cramped little prison cell. 

He could probably try screaming but the chance of anybody getting to him before he was murdered for his troubles was slim to none.

It all seemed so surreal. Less than an hour ago, he’d been talking to Hyuk, complaining about the wind and the prospect of walking down a darkened street without the promise of companionship.

Once he got out of this, he was never going anywhere alone again.  _ If  _ he got out of this.

Perhaps the worst thing of all was that he had no idea what was happening. He was essentially blind, oblivious to whatever horrors were about to unfold just a few feet away. And whoever the fuck this S.Coups was … he was on his way.

Maybe it was the boss these guys had mentioned earlier. The boss that apparently liked pretty boys. The thought sent a shiver down Jeonghan’s spine and he shifted again, trying to take the weight off his shoulder and alleviate that particular inconvenience.

Without warning, the trunk was popped open, a gust of the biting cold breeze pricking his entire body with goosebumps and tiny hairs standing erect.

“I swear to fucking Christ, if ya shake this car one more time, I’m gonna have to shoot ya, pretty boy,” his captor growled before the trunk was once again slammed shut, the entire car trembling with the force of the impact.

Mere seconds after returning to his void of fearful darkness, Jeonghan’s ears twitched at the sound of an approaching car.

There was the scuffle of tyres on tarmac and then the engine shut off, the slam of a car door echoing in the midnight silence before heavy footfalls were crunching through the snow.

“I heard you wanted to see me,” a voice boomed out, far louder than Jeonghan had anticipated, and he felt himself flinch slightly.

“Ah, Coups, it’s been a while,” came the familiar drawl of the gunman.

Jeonghan could decipher every word, loud and clear, despite the several inches of metal the sound waves had to travel through in order to reach him, and he held his breath just to be certain he didn’t miss a single thing that could potentially help him escape.

“So …” sighed the first voice again, sounding almost as if its owner was bored with the situation. “You finally came to your senses and realised your petty little bunch of pricks are far too pathetic to take our turf from us and now you want forgiveness for every one of my guys you’ve murdered in the last few weeks?”

His dialect was harsh, thick and easily identifiable as that of Daegu Province’s. Jeonghan’s parents had dragged him there a few years ago for their work, abandoning him in a hotel room with nothing to do but aimlessly roam the streets and dip into the occasional bar to pass the time.

He had always loved the way the locals spoke, had found himself wishing he could twist his tongue in a way that made him sound as aggressive and blunt as they did. But, in his current situation, its presence was nothing short of terrifying.

“Yeah, I guess you could say that, Coups. You don’t have to worry anymore. We’ll be leaving you and your guys to your precious turf.”

“I’m glad to hear it.”

“But there’s just one more thing we have to say before we go …”

The familiar whizzing  _ swoosh  _ of a dampened gunshot had Jeonghan’s entire body spasming in terror and he instinctively tried to make himself smaller so there was less room for a bullet to bury itself, but his muscles were already cramped and frozen.

There were more stifled gunshots, grunts, curses, the distinct sound of flesh colliding with flesh, an army of pounding feet and then a deafening bellow of, “YOU MOTHERFUCKERS!”

Jeonghan felt like he was watching a movie with a blindfold on. The sounds were so real and so close and so horrifically loud but the intensity of his fear came from the fact that he was unable to ascertain who was shooting who.

He heard the whispering slash of a blade slicing through skin, followed by a groan of pain, an indistinct scream of fury, more gunshots and the sound of more than one body slamming into the side of the car, sending the whole vehicle rocking ominously.

“Fuck, let’s go, let’s go, let’s go …” somebody shouted and then the doors were being opened, the car deflating a little with the weight of multiple bodies piling in.

They were leaving. And they were taking him with them.

“Shit … No … No … Help! Please!” Jeonghan screamed, twisting onto his back and kicking the roof of the trunk with all his might in a last ditch act of desperation to escape.

Never allow yourself to be moved to another location. That’s what the news broadcasts and survival pamphlets always said. Never let them take you somewhere else if you ever want to see your family again.

Jeonghan wasn’t too miffed about that particular prospect, but Hyuk? Hyuk he wanted to see again. His job he wanted to see again. The sunrise he wanted to see again. 

The engine roared to life but before they could move a single centimetre, the entire vehicle jolted and then sank to one side as though the wheels had just given up on taking the weight of so many people.

“Shit, they shot out the tyres!”

“That’s the pretty boy’s car, right? You think we can make it?”

“Yeah, they’re busy helping that fucker.”

“Alright … On three …” 

Jeonghan heard the doors open once more and the cacophony of curses and screeches returned full force, but, this time, it was short lived, concluded with the fading rumble of Jeonghan’s stolen car retreating into the distance.

And then there was silence, broken only by frantic breathing and a heart thudding in his throat. There was no shuffling of snow or firing of guns or grunts of poorly-concealed pain. There was nothing.

Were they all gone? Had they left him here? Was he stuck?

Biting down on the inside of his mouth and refusing to think about how his life could end in the next few seconds, he tried kicking at his confinements. Once, twice, and on the third attempt, the trunk burst open.

Freedom. The snap of the frigid air had never felt so inviting against his skin.

Resisting the urge to cry with relief, he rolled onto his side and swung his feet out into the open, using his elbow to push himself into a sitting position so he could finally climb out of that hell hole

But somebody else was faster.

He didn’t even catch a glimpse of anything more than a pair of boots before there were fingers around the back of his neck and he was being thrown to the ground. 

Arms still bound, he had no way of protecting himself and a sharp burst of pain ricocheted through his torso as his shoulder took the brunt of the impact.

He could taste something coppery on his tongue and the front of his shirt was drenched with melted snow but he didn’t dare try to get up.

“What’s this?”

The world spun as he was heaved upright and shoved against the bumper of the car, a bulky figure looming over him as it assessed his face and the twisted expression of undoubtable terror that it held.

The man – no, he was too young – the boy’s eyes were large and dark and narrowed in suspicion beneath thick bristled brows and framed with long lashes. 

His lips were stretched thin as he looked Jeonghan up and down, gaze roving from his hair to the scrapes on his knees and then to his visibly swollen ankle. 

“Coups, your shoulder,” somebody else said, sliding a gun into their waistband as they stalked over to the man Jeonghan assumed to be the infamous S.Coups.

His eyes were automatically drawn to the limb that seemed to be the cause of the fuss and he swallowed a globule of phlegm at the sight of thick red fluid trickling sluggishly down the smooth leather of Coups’ jacket.

“Yeah …” the injured man grunted without taking his eyes off Jeonghan. “Bitch got me with a knife.”

“We should get you back so DK can take a look.”

“I’m fine,” Coups shot over his shoulder, straightening his knees and rising into a standing position so that he towered over his victim on the ground.

“Coups …”

“Joshua, I said I’m …!”

He never even got to finish his sentence since his knees chose that moment to buckle without warning. 

He staggered, throwing out an arm to try and regain his balance but his body had reached its limit and Jeonghan watched him going down hard.

Instantly, he was surrounded by roughly half a dozen worried faces, wandering hands grabbing at various body parts to try and stop the bleeding.

“Shit!” came the pained hiss from the centre of the huddle as the fallen man began to writhe in pain, heels carving crevices in the snow beneath his feet. 

“Y-You need to … um … apply pressure.”

As soon as the words left his mouth, Jeonghan wished he’d held his tongue as five stony faces whipped around to face him, burning holes in his body with their eyes.

“Who the fuck are you?” one of them questioned in heavily accented Korean.

He couldn’t have been any larger than a twig, clothes practically hanging off his whispery frame, and his black hair was shaped into a short mullet. But what really caught Jeonghan’s attention was the fact that he wasn’t carrying a gun. Instead, he had a fucking sword strapped to his back. 

“I … Yoo …” Jeonghan couldn’t find his voice. “Jeonghan … I’m Jeonghan …”

“Who do you work for?” another demanded, straightening up from Coups’ side and approaching, shoulders squared and fingers drumming against the handle of his gun.

He was tall. Taller than the rest by a good few inches and, even with the threat of death looming over him, Jeonghan couldn’t help but note that, if the guy just smiled a little, he would be rather strikingly handsome.

“Uh … Seoul Private Hospital.”

The five of them exchanged a multitude of looks ranging from exasperation to incredulity before all attention was back on Jeonghan who still sat, bound and shivering, against the bumper of the car.

“A fucking civilian,” the fifth man cursed under his breath and only then did Jeonghan realise he was the least Korean-looking of them all.

His eyes were light brown, sort of caramelly, and slightly wider than would be expected of an Asian. His skin was paler and he had a set of teeth that didn’t seem to quite fit his face.

“What do we do with him?” the guy with the sword asked his companions, as though the subject of his question wasn’t sitting just a few feet away.

“Kill him. We need to get Coups to DK,” the man Jeonghan could now identify as Joshua ground out, already turning his back so he could refocus his attention on the patient beside him.

The ninja guy asked no further questions, unsheathing his sword from his back and raising it above his body, preparing to bring it down for a lethal blow.

“No! Please!” Jeonghan cried, tears spilling onto his cheeks as he shook his head frantically from side to side. “I’m sorry! I … I didn’t see anything … I didn’t see …”

His pleading was cut short by the agonised and borderline animalistic growl of a man in indescribable pain as Joshua tried to pull Coups into a somewhat standing position, leaving the ground where he’d lain stained a stark crimson colour.

“I-I-I can help him!” Jeonghan shouted desperately, trying to appeal to these boys’ apparent love for their leader. “I’m a doctor! He’ll bleed out before you get to wherever you're going! Please … Let me help him!”

The kid with the sword looked a little lost, glancing expectantly at the foreign guy before swivelling around to face Joshua, his sword still held aloft and at the ready.

“I said kill him, The8. What are you waiting for?”

“He said he could help,” the kid – The8 – countered and Joshua rolled his eyes, his legs bending slightly as he had to brace himself to take Coups’ weight.

“Leave it to you to question my judgement.”

“I can help, I promise …” Jeonghan pushed, feeling the first few dregs of hope beginning to surface. “He … I can stitch him up!”

It seemed to be working.

“It’s better than DK doing it, Shua!” the tallest called from where he’d already slid behind the wheel of the sleek black Mercedes. “And he  _ is  _ a doctor.” 

“Who said you could drive?” The8 snapped, completely off topic and out of the blue, re-sheathing his sword and storming towards the car. “Who told him he could drive?”

Jeonghan blinked and the tall guy was on the ground, The8’s knee pressing into his spine and his arms twisted behind his back as he kicked and wriggled and whined in childlike protest. 

It was perhaps the strangest thing Jeonghan had ever seen: two bloodthirsty gangsters having an immature tussle over who got to drive a car. 

“Do I really have to do every single fucking thing myself?” Joshua snarled, passing Coups over to the foreigner and whipping his own gun out, flipping off the safety as he advanced on his victim with clearly no intention of hesitating.

“Please …” Jeonghan begged. “I promise I can help …”

“Yes, we’ve done that bit already. Say your prayers, pretty boy.”

“P-Pretty boy … That’s rich coming from you.”

Jeonghan blames the shock. Or perhaps the adrenaline. Or the fact that he was, for the second time that night, staring down the barrel of a gun, but suddenly his mouth was running wild even in the face of death.

“I just want to go home. It’s been a pretty long fucking day, I just watched some freaks murdering a guy right in front of me and now I have a gun pointed at my head … Again!” he yelled, ignoring the fact that he was shaking and crying and probably angering the person who held his life in their hands. “And someone stole my fucking car!”

He had been traumatised, assaulted, abducted and almost executed twice in just a few hours and all he wanted was the comfort of his own bed.

“Shua … please …”

All eyes swivelled to the owner of that ghostly weak voice and if Jeonghan couldn’t see Coups’ bluish lips moving then he wouldn’t have believed the person speaking was the same one whose voice had almost given him a heart attack just a few moments previously.

The gangster had one arm slung over the foreigner’s shoulder, all his weight leaning into the boy’s solid frame, and the other was cradled against his chest, fingers sticky with scarlet and jacket soiled beyond repair.

He looked like he was getting paler and weaker by the second as the blood slowly drained from his body.

“Just let him help,” he implored Joshua. “I need this patched up and Mingyu’s right. It’s a better alternative than asking DK.”

A low hissing sound slipped from between Joshua’s lips and the fury in his expression ran rampant but, at last, he lowered the gun with a poorly suppressed string of swear words poisoning the air in front of his mouth. 

“I-I live … over in Dangsang,” Jeonghan provided anxiously, unsure whether or not staying silent would actually be better for his future aliveness.

“Good,” Joshua snapped, still visibly fuming even as he hauled the prisoner to his feet and forcibly turned him around so he could cut through the belt that bound his hands. “You can drop us there.”

Jeonghan’s muscles screamed in relief as his hands were released and he instantly cracked the tension from his spine as Coups addressed the rest of the group.

“You guys take the car back and send Wonwoo to pick us up. I’m not sure how much longer I can hold up.”

He really did look like he was about to keel over at any given moment, his head lolling against the foreign boy’s shoulder and his eyes fluttering closed as he swayed on his feet.

“How are you losing this much blood from a shoulder wound?” Jeonghan muttered to himself as he stepped forwards, professionally trained hands at the ready.

He could literally feel the anger and the tension ebbing off the bodies around him as he approached Coups. Joshua still hadn’t put his gun away and the boy the patient was leaning against was regarding the stranger with the deepest suspicion.

He knew they were ready to tackle him the moment he did anything other than treat their leader but he pushed the thought to the back of his mind.

He was a doctor now. He was not an innocent civilian being held hostage by a group of thugs. He was a doctor and this was his patient and something didn’t make sense.

Coups was circling the drain of unconsciousness, his skin paler than the snow around them, and there was blood waterfalling from the tail of his bomber jacket. 

Something as minor as a nick to the shoulder shouldn’t be causing a flow like that.

“Get him back on the ground,” Jeonghan instructed softly, adding a hasty “please” when Joshua shot him a withering glare.

He took hold of Coups’ free elbow and helped the unnamed boy lower their precious burden onto the snow. The moment he made contact, he slumped lifelessly into the nearest body, eyelids fluttering with wavering awareness. 

“You really shouldn’t be bleeding this much,” Jeonghan reiterated, pressing both hands over the wound and applying as much pressure as he could despite the wheezes and groans his actions elicited.

A soggy chuckle spluttered from Coups’ lips, accompanied by a couple of bloodied flecks, before he was jerkily unzipping his jacket and pulling aside his undershirt to reveal the gaping hole in his abdomen.

“Holy shit …” Jeonghan whispered.

And suddenly things weren't so simple anymore. 


	3. People With Guns

So maybe Jeonghan had stretched the truth a little.

He’d told these people he was a doctor and, technically, he was … sort of. His residency gave him that title but he was still a student and the only medical procedures he could perform on his own with absolute certainty were basic and simple.

The wound in Coups’ stomach was neither basic nor simple.

When Jeonghan had been considering which speciality he would end up picking, he felt like paediatrics was his calling. Children. Who didn’t like children?

He could deal with ear infections and runny noses and, sure, the occasional kid would experience something far more serious than the world should permit, but Jeonghan could handle that with ease. Couldn’t he?

He’d known his residency would toss him into the shithole that was the emergency room, the steaming cesspool of Seoul Private, but he hadn’t expected his daily shifts there to be so horrifically gruelling.

There was no rhyme or reason in the A&E department. Days could pass where there was nothing more serious than a drunken brawl or a broken wrist and then somebody would be wheeled in with huge chunks missing from their body and a moose antler shoved up their ass.

Jeonghan suppressed a shiver as his mind revisited that particular incident.

Coups groaned as they flew over a bump in the road and Jeonghan muttered a mumbled apology under his breath from where he was crouched in the footwell of the car, pressing down on the abdomen of the boy who lay stretched out over the back seats, his head in Joshua’s lap.

The med student was surprised he was even still conscious. He must be in unbearable pain, the amount of blood he’d lost was terrifying and Jeonghan couldn’t even take a look at it to assess which organs might have been punctured without the wound spurting scarlet at an alarming rate.

What he really needed was a hospital but that wasn’t exactly an option. If they took him in now, how was he supposed to explain the situation to whichever resident was on duty?

“Oh, hey there, yeah, I witnessed a shooting and was shoved into the trunk of a car but thank golly gosh this fine gentleman here saved me. Never mind that he brutally maimed a few people in the process … with possibly very illegal guns, but I swear to you, he’s a good guy!”

Jeonghan scoffed at his own imaginary scenario but quickly silenced himself when Joshua hissed a venomously hostile, “Something funny to you?”

It was a shit show all round.

“Which one?” The8 snapped from behind the wheel and Jeonghan raised his head to peer out of the window, eyes widening in surprise as he realised they’d already reached his street.

God knows how illegally fast they’d been driving.

“27,” he called back and, a few seconds later, the car pulled to a stop.

The real task was getting Coups out of the car, up the porch steps and into Jeonghan’s apartment. He wasn’t exactly overweight but his consciousness was dwindling with each passing second, reducing him to nothing but deadened weight in their arms.

The tall guy, who was apparently named Mingyu, and the foreigner who Joshua had called Vernon got on either side of their fallen leader and heaved him upright, his arms hooked lifelessly around their shoulders.

The height difference would have been comical if the situation wasn’t so life-or-death and the staggering stumble up Jeonghan’s driveway was slow and badly coordinated, Coups’ chin resting against his chest and his feet dragging along the pavement behind him.

If something wasn’t done very soon then he wasn’t going to make it, and then Jeonghan’s usefulness would run out.

He ran ahead of the morbid procession to unlock his front door and clear the way to his living room, flinging cushions over his shoulder and shoving the coffee table up against the wall so Mingyu and Vernon could lay the patient on the couch.

He was barely hanging on.

“Head straight back,” Joshua addressed the remaining three while Jeonghan stooped over Coups’ shivering body. “Take the long way to ensure you’re not followed and then give Wonwoo our location; tell him to come as soon as he can. Also, let Hoshi know that Coups was attacked by Sungjong’s gang. We need him to do his thing.”

There was a ripple of understanding nods and a smattering of indistinct acknowledgements before The8, Mingyu and Vernon were filing back out into the midnight cold, abandoning Jeonghan with a barely-conscious stab victim and his ferociously protective lapdog.

Joshua locked the door in the wake of his guys’ departure before returning to the living room and, for the first time since they’d met, there was a hint of apprehension in his eyes as he looked down at his leader.

“Okay. I need you to put your hands here,” Jeonghan instructed, gesturing with his head for Joshua to join him on his knees beside the couch. “I have to go get my kit and a light.”

There was no response from the concrete statue, only the flicker of an eyebrow. He showed no sign of releasing the gun he still clutched in a white-knuckled hand and Jeonghan’s patience was wearing thin.

“Listen, Joshua …” he snarled with as much authority as he could muster. “He’s gonna fucking die if you don’t help me out so I know you don’t like me but suck it the fuck up and get over here so you can keep him alive while I’m gone.”

Even in his spiralling vortex of pain and darkness, Coups managed a smirk of amusement and a weak chuckle. The sight sparked a strangely warm feeling in the pit of Jeonghan’s stomach.

He really needed to stop shouting at people with guns.

Joshua muttered something indecipherable under his breath but finally moved to obey, reluctantly discarding his gun on the carpet where he could still reach it if need be and positioning his hands over the med student’s.

Jeonghan waited for a second to be sure enough pressure was being applied to Coups’ wound before he slithered out of the way and straightened up, his knees popping with the sudden movement. 

“Fuck …” Coups groaned, brow furrowing in pain as his hand groped blindly for Joshua’s wrist, probably in an attempt to lessen the weight on top of him.

Much to Jeonghan’s surprise, Joshua caught the flailing limb and held on, intertwining their fingers and rubbing his thumb over the back of the bloodied knuckles.

“Shh, I got you …” he whispered and, in that moment, he looked so genuinely concerned and frightened for his friend that Jeonghan couldn’t believe he was the same person who’d tried to shoot him less than an hour ago. 

Turning away from the intimate display of affection, he stumbled into his room, wrestled the lamp from the bedside table and retrieved the first aid kit from his closet, sending up a silent prayer that he had enough nylon for as many stitches as Coups was going to need.

He still wasn’t sure what was going on beneath that mess of ragged flesh and broken skin but stopping the bleeding had to be his first priority before he ended up with a papery corpse draped over his couch.

“Okay, I’ve got everything,” he declared breathlessly as he returned to the gangsters and set the lamp up on the table so he could illuminate his surgical field.

Flipping open the first aid kit, he tugged a pair of purplish latex gloves over his fingers and retrieved a syringe that was promptly swatted out of his hand.

“What the fuck?” he growled, reciprocating Joshua’s glare. “What part of ‘I’m trying to help him’ do you not understand?” 

“No drugs,” Joshua hissed back, still clinging to Coups’ hand. “For all I know, you could be poisoning him.”

“It’s fucking morphine! I have to stitch him up! It’s going to hurt!”

He was surprised Joshua didn’t scoop up his gun and shoot him right there on the spot. God knows he looked like he wanted to even as he shuffled to the side to make room for Jeonghan, his fingers still linked with Coups.

The needle slid easily into the skin on either side of the stab wound and the drugs worked efficiently. Within a few moments, the pained groans had almost stopped.

Knowing he didn’t have long before the low dosage wore off, Jeonghan got to work on cleaning the injury itself.

The bleeding had finally been staunched and closer inspection revealed that the knife hadn’t penetrated quite as deep as Jeonghan had first thought. It would take quite some time to heal fully, as most stomach wounds did, but it was not life-threatening. Thank fuck.

No major vessels or organs appeared to have sustained any serious damage so pretty much all that could be done was to stitch up the opening and pray that nothing had been missed.

“Whoa, whoa, whoa!” Joshua yelled and there was the familiar click of a cocked gun just a few centimetres from Jeonghan’s ear. “What are you doing?”

“Cutting his shirt off,” Jeonghan shot back, overcoming his initial shock and using the scissors in his hand to slice through the bloodied material clinging to Coups’ skin. “Any other questions?”

The quip was a sarcastic one and, therefore, he didn’t expect the reply that followed.

“Is he okay?”

Surprised at the sudden softness to his captor’s voice, Jeonghan turned his head and saw Joshua’s gun hanging limp at his side, his eyebrows knotted in the centre of his forehead and his eyes fixated on his friend’s bloodied body. He looked like he was in pain.

“He’s fine …” Jeonghan supplied, a little gentler than before. “He lost a lot of blood but it’s not as deep as I first thought. I just need to stitch him up.”

He threaded the sterilised needle and then shot Joshua a quick glance, trying to inspect him for any hidden injuries that would be the cause of that expression on his face.

“Are you hurt?” he asked timidly, reluctant to feel the barrel of a firearm against his temple yet again.

The only response he received was an exasperated roll of the eyes and a curt, “No.”

Deciding to leave it at that, Jeonghan focused his sole attention on the task at hand, carefully inserting the needle into the soft flesh and drawing the two sides together. He held his tongue between his teeth in the way he always did when he was concentrating. It had never failed him before and, fortunately for him, the lucky streak continued.

It was a painstakingly fiddly, intricate and delicate procedure but, after what was probably a good forty-five minutes, Jeonghan siphoned off the final stitch and severed the excess nylon.

Coups was out cold, his hair drenched with sweat and his skin paler than paper, but his chest was no longer spasming with constricted breaths and Jeonghan finally felt the adrenaline leaving his body.

He fell back against the wall, tearing his gloves off and allowing his head to roll into the wall, eyes closing and shoulders heaving with relieved exhaustion.

He would be lying if he said he’d been 100% certain that Coups was going to make it.

“Shouldn’t you take care of that?”

Eyes springing open again, he caught sight of Joshua kneeling beside the couch once more, staring pointedly at Jeonghan’s injured ankle. By now, it was swollen and quite obviously discoloured and the owner cursed under his breath.

He hadn’t felt the pain until Joshua had pointed it out but there wasn’t much more he could do for Coups right now other than keep monitoring him for any changes so he retrieved a bag of peas out of his freezer and propped his leg up on the coffee table.

Joshua remained silent, simply observing Jeonghan icing the injured appendage. 

It was nearing four in the morning and tired didn’t even begin to describe how Jeonghan was feeling. He could quite literally feel his eyelids drooping of their own accord, all the aches and pains in his body intensifying full force.

“Take a nap,” Joshua ordered bluntly, eyeing the way his friend’s saviour was rolling his shoulder uncomfortably. “I’ll wake you when we leave.”

There was absolutely no way Jeonghan was leaving himself unarmed and defenceless in the same room as the person who had pointed a gun at his head no less than three times that night.

“Suit yourself,” Joshua shrugged, slouching against the side of the couch and resting his head on his arm.

He closed his eyes and it didn’t take long for his breaths to even out but, even in sleep, he kept a firm grip on the handle of his weapon. 

Jeonghan sighed in defeat, tugging his fingers through the knotted mess that his hair had become. He really should be calling the police. He was harbouring a pair of criminals in an apartment paid for by lawyers. How ironic.

But he didn’t want to. He couldn’t explain it – maybe it was the fact that he’d just saved his life – but he didn’t want to turn that boy over to the authorities. Not yet, anyway.

As if he could sense somebody was thinking about him, Coups stirred in his sleep, eyelids crinkling with a smidgen of discomfort. The tiny amount of morphine in his system should be wearing off but Jeonghan didn’t want to give him anymore. The stuff was a bitch to get addicted to.

The patient shifted again but still didn’t wake and it suddenly struck the doctor that maybe he was cold.

Limping clumsily to the linen closet, he procured a couple of his thickest blankets and made the steady plod back to the living room. Joshua opened one eye as the extra layer was draped over him but he settled down when he realised it was just the pretty boy med student giving him some more warmth.

Starting to think that maybe he wasn’t as ruthless as he first seemed, Jeonghan carefully laid the second blanket over Coups, concealing the toned muscles of his bare chest from view. His colour was slowly returning and although his skin was still far too pale, his lips had gone from a lifeless blue to a soft pale pink.

At such close proximity, his eyelashes seemed impossibly long, casting a dark shadow over the definition in his cheekbones, thickened brows furrowed in his fitful sleep. Jeonghan hadn’t had time to notice while he was pleading for his life but the apparently revered and feared S.Coups was a Class A bona fide hottie.

He’d never had the chance to properly explore his sexual preferences as he was growing up so the fact that he liked men just as much as he liked woman had always been something he buried deep in the depths of his mind.

It felt cliché to be pretty and like boys, too, and he could still hear his father’s voice.

“No son of mine is going to be a sissy.”

The comment had been completely unprovoked but Jeonghan had known from experience that he should take it for what it was: a warning that such behaviours would not be tolerated.

But he was a pretty boy who liked other boys so he guessed that, as far as his father was concerned, he was a sissy. Ignoring it had done nothing for his emotional progress and watching Coups sleeping restless on his couch only succeeded in solidifying that thought in his head.

The sharp rap of knuckles on the door had Jeonghan flinching and Joshua leaping up from his place on the floor, barrelling towards the source of the interruption with his gun already drawn.

Jeonghan watched, holding his breath, as the boy peered through the peephole before releasing a long sigh mixed with both relief and exhaustion, and opened the door.

This must be Wonwoo. Tall, slim and stern-faced. It was both crazy and strange how attractive all of Coups’ charges seemed to be.

“We need to leave … now,” Wonwoo growled, his plummeting baritone rumbling through the silence of the apartment. “We have inbound.”

Joshua apparently needed no further information but Jeonghan’s head was full of questions. Who was inbound? What was going on? Were they leaving?

“Okay,” Joshua acknowledged. “Help me get him to the car.”

Jeonghan wasn’t even spared a second glance as the two stalked over to the couch and carefully shifted Coups’ unconscious figure onto Wonwoo’s back. Joshua shrugged off his jacket and draped it over the boy’s shoulders, keeping his exposed back protected from the cold they were about to plunge right back into.

“Wait …” Jeonghan cried as the three of them made their way towards the door. “What’s happening?” 

Wonwoo paused mid-stride, hitching Coups slightly higher in his grasp as his eyes zipped from Joshua to Jeonghan and then back again.

“Is he coming?”

“No.”

“But …”

“I said … no,” Joshua barked, already with one foot out the door. 

“But they’re –”

Wonwoo’s protest was smothered as the windows at the front of the flat imploded, shards of broken glass pouring down on top of them.

“GET DOWN!” Joshua roared, but Jeonghan had already dropped like a stone as the deafening eruption of gunfire echoed all around him.

He threw his arms over his head in a pathetic attempt to protect himself as he heard bullets burrowing into his couch, his table and his walls, and he was right in the centre of it, sprawled on a platter of fragmented glass. 

Hands clamped over his ears, he forced his eyes open and caught sight of Joshua and Wonwoo lying on top of Coups’ prone figure, shielding him from further harm as the missiles continued to fly above their heads.

From outside, there was the squeaking screech of tyres on tarmac and, as quickly as it started, it stopped. And everything was silent again.

“They’re looking for him,” Wonwoo finished his earlier sentiment, addressing Joshua over the top of Coups’ body and jerking his thumb in Jeonghan’s direction.

“Good. All the more reason to leave him here. He’ll only endanger the rest of us.”

If Jeonghan wasn’t paralysed with fear and numb with shock and wallowing in the knowledge that he’d just been shot at – again – then he probably would have argued with Joshua’s logic. But he was all of those things, and so he couldn’t make a sound.

“Let’s go. We’re leaving him.” 

“They’ll kill him.”

“That’s not our problem, Wonwoo!” Joshua bellowed, a vein bulging in his temple as he hooked his arms beneath Coups and heaved him off the glass-strewn carpet. “We have to get Seungcheol somewhere safe and if one more person undermines my authority tonight then I’ll shoot them myself!”

That seemed to do the trick. Wonwoo clamped his mouth shut and retrieved their fallen guns before following his two superiors out the front door without so much as a backward glance at the trembling boy they were leaving on the floor.

Jeonghan couldn’t make sense of anything.

Someone was after him. Someone wanted him dead and the only thing that could have possibly served as his protection had just walked out that door without so much as a goodbye.

And who was Seungcheol? Joshua had said ‘Seungcheol’. Was that Coups? Was that his real name? It could be. Seungcheol was a name; Coups wasn't.

There was a soft clink and a hissing sound from somewhere to his left and Jeonghan had to fight the urge to scream an infuriated, “What now? What else have you fucking got for me?” into the silence.

But he never got the chance.

Because it was then that his living room exploded.


	4. Taxes And Soot-Soaking

Seungcheol allowed himself to have this moment. He allowed his mind to linger just a little longer at the edge of consciousness before rousing himself slowly and gradually instead of with a violent jolt like the previous two times he’d awakened.

Because he knew that once his senses were fully alert, he would once again be tossed into a vat of excruciating pain.

He had gasped his way through the two blood bags that had been generously donated to him by Minghao but he had only permitted Seokmin to administer small doses of oxycodone for the pain.

It was one of their policies: stay away from drugs. Not only did he refuse to touch the stuff himself but he also tried his hardest to keep every one of his guys as far away from addiction as possible. They pedalled the product but it simply wouldn’t do to get high off their own supply.

“You aren’t funny … Someone tell him he’s not funny,” came Mingyu’s booming voice from somewhere in the med bay.

“Where’s my launcher. I left it here yesterday. Where is it?” That was Hansol. Whenever the words ‘rocket launcher’ were included, it was always Hansol.

“Why would you need your launcher?” Chan piped up.

“Why wouldn’t I need my launcher?”

“Is anyone listening to me? Somebody tell Minghao that his little Chinese jokes aren’t funny when we can’t understand a word he’s saying!”

Seungcheol felt the sigh rippling through his throat as his awareness steadily returned to him, instantly wincing as the pounding in his head reached its peak and the tight pulsing sensation in his abdomen sent twinges of razor-sharp pain shooting through his torso.

“Hao, you aren’t funny,” Jihoon offered up.

“Speak for yourself. I think he’s hilarious,” Junhui declared, contributing his voice to the chorus.

“Where the fuck is my rocket launcher?”

“You’re awake.”

Seungcheol’s lips cracked as they stretched into the ghost of a smile and he peeled his eyelids apart to see the blurry outline of his best friend leaning over him.

He’d expected that the first face he would be seeing was Joshua’s. Of all his guys, they had the longest history together. They knew each other inside and out, knew their likes and dislikes, strengths and weaknesses.

Joshua hadn’t had it easy and Seungcheol was aware of just how painfully difficult it had been for the boy to navigate his way through the criminal world before they met each other. He seemed too soft, too kind, and it had gotten him into way more trouble than it should have.

He had to put the extra effort in just to be assertive and solidify his position as the second in command so it had come as no surprise to Seungcheol when his friend had taken an instant disliking to that pretty doctor they’d met.

Jeonghan his name was, right? Well, Jeonghan was everything Joshua used to be: soft, attractive and easy to walk all over. Too good. Not a push over but just pliable enough to break if bent far enough. 

Joshua had fought so goddamn hard to remove himself from that image. The appearance of Jeonghan must have been like a sick joke to him. The two of them were eerily similar, right down to the short temperament.

It felt strange to compare them like that when Seungcheol had never had anything but platonic feelings for Joshua but, the very moment he’d set eyes on Jeonghan cowering in the snow with his hands bound, his face pale, his teeth chattering and his reddish hair in a tangled nest, he’d felt his long-since-frozen heart thudding in his chest.

It was thanks to him that Seungcheol was even still around to have those thoughts so it seemed only fitting that he would be stuck picturing that surprisingly plucky pretty boy med student. 

“Yeah, I am,” he whispered croakily, returning to his earlier train of thought. “How long have I been out?”

“A little over twelve hours,” Joshua responded, his eyes running up and down Seungcheol’s body as he assessed his physical and emotional condition. “And that’s not counting the other couple of times you woke up because you weren’t exactly coherent then.” 

Seungcheol knew Joshua could read him like a book and therefore would be able to see, clear as day, that he was in pain but that it was just about tolerable. It was the cold that was causing the true discomfort. And the thirstiness.

There must have been a glass of water on the bedside table because Joshua seemed to procure it from nowhere, his hand slipping beneath Seungcheol’s head so he could lift it a couple of inches off the pillow and help him take slow sips.

“You scared the shit out of me, Cheol,” he admitted, watching his leader’s throat bobbing as he swallowed. “More than once, I thought we were going to lose you.” 

Seungcheol scrunched his eyes shut and turned his head away from the glass to signify he’d had enough, “You wouldn’t have let me die. I’m sure that doctor knows the true meaning of fear now thanks to you.” 

“You know it,” Joshua smirked, returning the cup to the bedside table and leaning back in his chair. “So Sungjong’s stooges carried out an execution on our turf. You know what that means, right?”

“Yeah, I’m aware,” Seungcheol ground out, his face twisting in pain as he battled his way into a sitting position and leaned forwards so Joshua could prop a couple more pillows behind him. “Do we have an ID on the dead guy yet?”

“Um … Jihoon got something but … you’re not going to like it.”

Well, that certainly wasn’t going to help with the gradually-building anxiety.

“Who is it?”

“We don’t know exactly,” Joshua supplied, nervously fiddling with his fingers in his lap. “But he’s branded. A dragon. He’s from one of the Daegu gangs.”

“Shit,” Seungcheol cursed, closing his eyes and allowing his head to flop back against the cushions. “Why was he here in Seoul?”

Unconsciously, his hand travelled up to his shoulder where the dragon insignia was inked into his skin. Back when he’d operated out in Daegu, he was just a runner. Technically, he was still under their rule but since he’d managed to keep control of his domain for the five or so years he’d been in Seoul, he was permitted to stay.

That was, until now. A member of one of his brother gangs getting murdered on his turf made him responsible. That meant anyone out of the three Daegu movements was out for his blood. Possibly all of them. 

“We’re trying to identify which gang he belongs to but the dragon is generic to Daegu. There are no other brands or marks that indicate he’s with Choi, Min or Kim.”

Seungcheol resisted the urge to slam his fist into the mattress at his side, knowing it would only result in an increase of his pain.

“Tell Jihoon to tap into the three major lines so he can try narrowing it down,” he ordered after a moment’s careful consideration. “One of them will be looking for me.”

“Got it,” Joshua acknowledged grimly, rising from his chair and turning to leave.

“Oh, and send the doctor in here.”

“Seokmin’s with Soonyoung today. Did you forget?”

“No, not Seokmin,” Seungcheol sighed, rolling his eyes behind their lids. “Jeonghan.”

There was a short stretch of bewildered silence and he looked up to see Joshua’s forehead furrowed in confusion above him, “He isn’t here.”

“Then where is he?”

“I don’t know,” the boy shrugged, clearly with a complete lack of concern. “Last I saw, he was lying face down in a sea of broken glass. Someone reported an apartment on fire not long after that so he’s probably dead.”

“What? Are you crazy?” Seungcheol cried, trying to sit up but falling back against his pillow pile with a sharp hiss of pain and a hand clutched to the wound in his side. “Find him! You can’t leave him out there! He’s the only witness to that execution!”

“I’m not bringing him back here. Sungjong’s guys are looking for him.”

“And me?” Seungcheol snapped, flashing his most dangerous eyes in his friend’s direction. “There’s a target on my back now. Are you going to throw me out on the streets, too, Shua?”

Even reclined on a bed with bandages looped around the stitches in his stomach – Jeonghan’s stitches, he might add – Seungcheol was a leader and not to be taken lightly. 

“It’s not like that!” Joshua rebuked at once. “You’re one of ours.”

“And he saved my life!”

That particular counterattack seemed to have done more damage than all the others put together and Seungcheol sank back into the thin mattress, hissing through his teeth with every breath as his hands massaged his wounded side.

“I expect you of all people to know how to take orders, Joshua,” he growled once he’d regained control of his pain. “Now get Wonwoo to break up Mingyu and Minghao, tell Hansol he’ll get his launcher back when he finishes the deal with our new traders and take Junhui with you to find Jeonghan. Is that clear?”

Joshua was glaring at him and Seungcheol knew he was only behaving this way to protect his family but a leader’s word was final.

“Whatever you say … _boss_ ,” he spat the last word before storming out of the med bay and slamming the door in his wake.

\-----------------

Junhui was loitering in the hallway shadows when Joshua emerged from the med bay, his expression contorted into one of sour irritation, and, had he not been a member of Seoul’s biggest gang, he would have been shocked by the sudden interruption of his thoughts.

“I’ve already sorted out the other parts,” Junhui piped up out of nowhere, gesturing through the open door behind him to the common room.

Peering through, Joshua could see Wonwoo sitting on top of a very pissed-off Mingyu and Vernon mumbling profanities under his breath as he furiously slammed his fingers into the keyboard.

Apparently, Junhui had been listening to Seungcheol’s orders.

“Let’s go catch us a pretty boy,” the kid quirked, sending his superior a cocky smirk before turning on his heel and marching off down the corridor.

That was the thing about Junhui. While Joshua was ashamed of his feminine-like features and the hardships they brought him, the younger boy was proud to crack jokes about his own appearance.

He was tall – almost as tall as Mingyu – with a very athletic build and his face was, in equal parts, both striking and delicate. He had the kind of likeable personality that Joshua envied and he was one of their go-to guys whenever some sort of meeting was involved.

He was everything Joshua wasn’t.

Together, they took the van up to Dangsang and, just as Joshua’s report had said, apartment twenty-seven was no longer standing. What remained was nothing more than black ash and smoke, roped off by luminescent police tape and smelling strongly of burning even though the flames had long since been extinguished.

Junhui let out a long, low whistle, “Now what? Did your contact say he was dead?”

“If only it were that easy to get rid of the fucker,” Joshua sighed, wiggling his phone out of his pocket and scanning the information he’d received that morning. “He’s not dead. Call Woozi and get him on the security servers.”

He only half listened to Junhui’s conversation with their resident hacker as he pulled the car away from the curb and onto the next street, driving aimlessly up and down the roads and scanning the sparse public for any sign of long reddish hair.

Jihoon was quick as always, mailing them a short CCTV clip of Jeonghan stumbling out of the burning building with his footsteps uneven and his face screaming the words, ‘shell-shocked’.

He had staggered, unnoticed, through the crowd of onlookers and firefighters and wandered into the neighbouring street like some kind of traumatised zombie. The footage followed him for a few blocks, switching cameras every time he ran out of sight, but, after only a couple of minutes, he disappeared completely.

“Shit …” Junhui muttered. “Where are our taxes even going to if the police can’t spot a guy walking out of a burning building?”

“You don’t pay taxes,” Joshua pointed out, glancing down at the phone screen just to be sure Jeonghan was nowhere to be found.

“It’s the principle that matters.”

At this point, he must have gotten used to Joshua rolling his eyes at him.

“Get Hoshi on the line,” Seungcheol’s right hand man ordered. “Interrupt whatever he’s doing with Seokmin and get him talking to his people. He has to know someone who can find Jeonghan.” 

“On it,” Junhui serenaded.

They continued patrolling the streets as they awaited Soonyoung’s response, constantly on the look-out for anybody who looked like they’d just strolled calmly out of a burning building. The heat was turned all the way up and yet the cold from outside still nipped irritably at their skin.

If their bodies were pricked with goosebumps then Joshua could only imagine what Jeonghan must be feeling, alone, unprotected and shuffling through the wind in the middle of winter. He hoped, for the boy’s sake, that he’d at least had the presence of mind to find somewhere safe to stay. 

The footage they had was over twelve hours old and, even then, Jeonghan clearly hadn’t been the picture of health. The chances of finding him alive were getting smaller by the minute.

Junhui was fiddling with the air vents in his boredom, wriggling his fingertips through the slots so they could receive as much warmth as possible, and Joshua was just beginning to feel guilty about abandoning Jeonghan out there.

“It’s Jun!” his companion sang into the phone when it rang, following up with a few “uhhuhs” and “okays” and then a melodious “thanks Hoshi!” before he hung up the call.

“Well …” Joshua snapped impatiently. “Where is he?”

“Uh … He’s at the house.” 

Well, neither of them had been expecting that.

“He’s what?”

“You know …” Junhui elaborated, waving his hand in the vague direction they’d just come from. “That pile of ashy rubble on the last street? Well … yeah … that’s where he is.”

Joshua could only wonder just how out of his fucking mind Jeonghan must have been to return to the place where he was almost killed. Twice. 

They made it back to the scene of the crime in less than a minute, leaping gracefully out of the van and ducking beneath the police tape that had been stretched around the perimeter.

The smell of gas and smoke was almost suffocating, both of them stifling coughs as they got closer to the carnage that had once been a cosy little apartment. There were still a few walls standing between what used to be the living room and glass crunched beneath their boots as they cautiously picked their way through the piles of singed and soot-soaked rubble.

How Jeonghan was even still alive, neither of them knew. 

“He’s here!” Junhui alerted the search party, confusion dominating his tone.

Joshua rounded the corner and stopped dead, eyes widening at the sight of Jeonghan curled up on his charred bedframe, facedown in a filthy pillow, and not wearing a shirt.

“What the fuck …” he whispered, carefully approaching the motionless figure and reaching out to shake its bare shoulder. “Jeonghan?”

It took a couple of attempts, each one instilling more worry in Joshua’s mind, but then Jeonghan gave a miniscule groan of irritation, rolling over onto his back and stretching as though he’d just awoken from a decent nap.

“Oh … hey … Joshua?” he slurred, flapping an uncoordinated hand up to his face in a failed attempt to rub at the grime in his eyes and Joshua had to grab his wrist to stop him from damaging his vision any further.

“What are you doing?” Junhui asked, crouching down beside the bed and talking slowly as if addressing a child.

“Oh, just taking a nap …” Jeonghan replied as if it were obvious, gesturing with a jellied limb in the general direction of where his living room used to be as if all he had been presented with was a minor inconvenience. “Half my house blew up.”

For a moment, nobody spoke and Joshua was just starting to wonder if maybe there was some kind of brain damage involved here when Junhui shrugged off his jacket and laid it over Jeonghan’s bare chest, glancing up at his hyung and mouthing the word ‘hypothermia’.

And it made sense seeing as the temperature had plummeted since last night and the delirious boy lying in front of them without a shirt had clearly been frozen to the point of insanity. 

“Come on,” Junhui addressed Joshua as he slipped his hands beneath Jeonghan’s arms and hauled him into a sitting position. “We have to get him to DK.”

Jeonghan mumbled something incoherent, tossing Junhui’s jacket to the floor as though he didn’t need it despite the fact that his lips and fingernails were tinged a pale pearly blue.

“S’hot,” he reasoned, his head rolling about on his shoulders as if his neck could no longer support the weight.

“It’s not hot,” Junhui snorted in incredulity, hoisting the frozen boy up off the bed and into a relatively vertical position. “You’re freezing to death.”

Joshua was feeling guiltier by the second. Jeonghan had saved Seungcheol’s life and then they’d just left him to die. 

“Let’s get him to the van,” he said, resisting the urge to turn away from the proof of his negligence so that he wouldn’t have to see the glassy vacancy in Jeonghan’s eyes and the way his knees were threatening to give out at any moment.

“Joshua …” Jeonghan repeated, raising his head slightly and producing a sloppy sideways smile as if he was seeing an old friend for the first time in years.

“Uh, hey, hi,” Joshua mumbled back, avoiding eye contact as he moved forward to take Jeonghan’s other arm. “Can you stand?” 

The boy nodded but the movement was groggy and clumsy and Joshua didn’t trust him for a second.

“Get him on my back,” he told Junhui, turning around and bending his knees so he was in a better stance to heave Jeonghan off the floor. Once they had him situated and secure, Junhui retrieved his jacket from the ground and draped it over their patient’s exposed body.

“S’hot,” Jeonghan mumbled again but, this time, he made no effort to move his limbs and Joshua’s concern was growing.

“Make sure DK’s back at the bunker. Coups is going to want him there when we arrive.”

“Alrighty,” Junhui chirped, leading the way to the van as he made the call.

Joshua lay Jeonghan across the back seat, wincing as his arms flopped limply to the side as though his body had just stopped trying to hold itself up any longer.

“Fuck …” 

His ankle was still swollen, the skin blossoming a patchwork of reds, blues and purples. There was a burn on one side of his neck, a circular welt in the centre of his forehead that was most likely the result of a gun barrel, and then, on top of all of that, he was hypothermic.

“Coups is probably going to kill you if he dies,” Junhui pointed out as he climbed into the driver’s seat, leaving Joshua crouched in the back as if he didn’t already know this was all his fault.

“Let’s just get him back.”

“Ay-ay, captain.”


	5. Doctors And Declarations

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TRIGGER WARNING!!!  
> This chapter contains potentially triggering content such as mentions of past non-con and abuse. Please do not read if you know this will be upsetting for you

If he’d said it once, he’d said it a thousand times: he wasn’t a fucking doctor.

Seokmin hissed a couple of choice swear words as he once again tried and failed to insert a needle into the crook of his newest patient’s elbow.

Jeonghan’s temperature had been dangerously low when Joshua had carried him in and he desperately needed the heated fluids in the IV bag above his bed to start pumping through his veins if he didn’t want to stay a human popsicle.

The boy was under a mountain of blankets and yet still continued twitching with alarmingly violent shivers. More than once, his breathing had gotten so shallow that it sounded like it had stopped altogether.

Hypothermia was a bitch. A murderous bitch. And Seokmin was trying to quell its cravings for blood but it was pretty fucking difficult with Joshua standing at the foot of the bed, his arms folded over his chest and his jaw set in emotionless expectance. 

The not-doctor pulled the IV line from the bruised skin of Jeonghan’s arm and flipped his hand over, desperately searching for a vein that stuck out just enough for a kid with virtually no medical experience to stab it with a needle.

He knew how to do this. In theory. He used to inject shots of heroin into the clients who would come trudging into the pharmacy with their yellowing nails and alcohol breath.

But illegal drug administration wasn’t exactly the required qualification for shit as complicated as this. He used to shelve pills, measure doses and, once or twice, he’d patched up a wound.

That didn’t make him a doctor, but he wasn’t exactly complaining.

Seungcheol had picked him up on the run after he’d killed a man. One of his clients. By purposefully overdosing him with the very stuff he’d brought in to get high off of.

The client had burst in once every few days, asking for Seokmin – by name – to help him administer his shots, and, while in the privacy of the makeshift clinician room at the back of the building, the bastard had got a little handsy.

It started off as innocent idle conversation, something Seokmin usually loved to contend with. He was a talkative guy, and that was putting it mildly, but then those pleasant conversations had turned into fleeting touches and soon after … not so fleeting.

The mammoth of a man started coming by more often and, no matter how desperately Seokmin begged his boss not to make him go out there, he could never avoid a single one of those little sessions.

Because good customer service led to regulars and regulars were good for business.

Seokmin still remembered the first time it happened; the memories as vivid as if it were yesterday. How the man, high as a fucking kite, had seized him by the throat and shoved him, face first, into the stiffened leather of the examination couch. 

How he had wrestled him out of his clothes, oblivious to his pleas and cries for mercy, and hadn’t bothered to be gentle when he tore him apart. He’d left Seokmin a bloodied, battered mess and then he’d come straight back for more.

It carried on that way for months. Months of tears and begging and bleeding and weighing out the pros and cons of slitting his wrists. It got to the point where he couldn’t even sit down or stand straight for days at a time.

His boss wouldn’t accept his resignation. He essentially owned him since Seokmin was only working at the pharmacy to pay off a debt his father had owed before his death.

But, one day, Seokmin snapped.

Instead of the usual dosage, he’d pulled back the plunger until the syringe was filled with the sticky speedball gunk and injected it deep into the monster’s veins. And then he waited, tears streaming down his cheeks, just to be sure that the job was done.

He witnessed every second. He felt the pulse in his abuser’s sweaty tree trunk of a neck gradually slowing and he was there the moment that it stopped altogether.

Only then did he run. 

Seungcheol had found him trying to steal food from Seungkwan’s kitchens almost two weeks later and Seokmin thought that, surely, that would be the end of him.

S.Coups was barely an adult at the time, still building a team of his own in Seoul, but even pharmacists feared the notorious gunman who could blow a skull to pieces from fifty feet away. 

But he hadn’t died that night. Instead, he’d found a new life.

Seungcheol had listened to his story, told through whimpers and hiccups and slurred sobs, and had almost immediately offered him the position of house physician. After overcoming his initial shock, Seokmin had jumped at the opportunity and barely a day later, Seungcheol had bought him off the Pharmacist.

That meant that, technically, he was the leader’s property, but never – not once – had he been treated like he didn’t have his own mind, will and rights.

And he’d been here ever since. 

But he wasn’t a fucking doctor, and he had no idea how to help the man lying on this bed right now.

“What’s taking so long?” Joshua snapped, and Seokmin had to resist the urge to snap straight back as he fumbled the injection for the umpteenth time. “We can’t lose this kid, DK.”

“I know,” he ground out through gritted teeth, wiping the sweat from his brow with the back of his hand. 

He was not only losing patience but confidence, too, and Jeonghan was in danger of losing his life if this ex-pharmacist couldn’t pull himself together in the next few moments.

“Y … you … tie … you need … to tie … tie it off,” came a shuddering whisper, words barely coherent through hitched breaths and stutters, and Seokmin almost jumped out of his skin before he located the source of the interruption.

Jeonghan was awake. And apparently lucid enough to know that his physician was in need of a pretty major upgrade. 

“Thank fuck,” Seokmin breathed, closing his eyes for a brief second of euphoric oblivion. “Between you and Coups, I was sure I was going to have some kind of heart attack.” 

Jeonghan’s colourless lips offered a fragile smile as he hugged the blankets a little closer to his frozen body.

“T-tie off m-my arm and … tr-try again,” he encouraged through chattering teeth. “You … g-got this.”

Spurred on by the misguided belief his patient seemed to have in him, Seokmin followed his orders down to the letter. He snatched Joshua’s belt right off his waist, ignoring the indignant grunts of protest, and tightened it around the sugary flesh just above Jeonghan’s elbow.

Skin started to darken in colour as a pale blue vein worked its way to the surface and started pushing, desperate to break free, and Seokmin wasted no time in forcing the tip of the needle inside.

Jeonghan barely flinched. Whether that was a good sign or not, nobody really knew. 

“Finally …” Joshua muttered under his breath, completely oblivious to the death glare Seokmin sent him as he braced his hands on the edge of the bed and took a deep breath, relief flooding his system.

For a moment there, he truly didn’t think he was going to be able to do it.

“Good job …” Jeonghan mumbled, blinking sluggish as he stared up at his saviour with a glaze of glassy pride in his eyes. “Knew you could …”

Seokmin had absolutely no idea who this boy was. He’d been summoned to the bunker on an urgent SOS call and presented with the already half-dead body that now lay before him.

He wasn’t sure why Joshua and Seungcheol seemed so desperate to save him, whether he was an ally on an enemy, but he knew one thing: he liked this guy. A lot.

“Thanks,” he grinned, a little breathless after the adrenaline inside him had finally died. “Now what?”

“We have some tea!” came Junhui’s perfectly timed announcement as he shouldered open the door and flounced over to them, a tray of steaming mugs in his hands.

Joshua rolled his eyes and, seemingly having reassured himself that the patient was stable, left the room but Seokmin couldn’t care less. Joshua was one of his favourite people on Earth but when he got stressed, he was about as fun as a butt full of cactus spikes.

“Yes, Jun!” Seokmin cheered, shifting a few things on the bedside table so Junhui could set the tray down. “You know the right way to a man’s heart!”

While the two of them faffed around with milk and sugar, Jeonghan took advantage of the opportunity to assess the damage for himself.

He could feel the shrivelled plastic texture of something sticking to the side of his neck, informing him that he must have been burned at some point. Probably when his apartment decided to explode, a fact which hadn’t quite sunk in yet. 

His ankle pulsed with a dull ache from where it was awkwardly propped up on a lopsided pile of pillows, his goosebumped body was layered in blankets and there was the heavenly warmth of several heating pads pressing up against his torso.

Thank God this medic apparently knew enough not to put anything hot on his arms or legs. There was no way he would have been able to deal with the resulting blood clots.

Surprisingly, other than the obvious pains, Jeonghan felt relatively alright. He supposed he could be warmer but he couldn’t ask for anything more given the situation.

A rhythmic pulse of vibrations burst to life against his leg and he gave a startled yelp of surprise at the sudden stimulation.

“What is it? What’s wrong?” Seokmin began fussing at once, hands flapping about above his patient’s body.

“Nothing … I think … I think my phone’s ringing …”

Without a second’s hesitation, Jun lifted the blankets and started fumbling around in the pockets of Jeonghan’s singed jeans. It was a little too personal for somebody Jeonghan had only just learned the name of but the intrusion only lasted a few seconds.

“Incoming call from Hyuk?” Jun read out, holding up the phone to display the caller ID.

“Shit …” Jeonghan groaned, slamming his palm into his face. “Oh, shit, he’s going to kill me.”

And then some. He’d gone away for the weekend and Jeonghan had managed to blow up their apartment.

“Nah …” Jun dismissed, declining the call and tossing the phone back onto the bed. “Coups will never allow it.”

“You good to sit up and have a drink?” Seokmin asked, already readying the pillows to prop behind Jeonghan’s back, and the patient winced as he shuffled into a more upright position.

As soon as the heat from his mug began to seep through the wafer-thin skin stretched over his hands, his faith in the power of warm beverages was restored. Not only did the liquid feel like it was acting as a radiator in his gut but also that it was extending to all his extremities, too.

“Mingyu is the master of all things tea-related …” Jun chuckled, perching on the edge of the adjacent bed with his own mug. “But don’t tell Minghao I said that.”

Seokmin’s head snapped up, eyes suddenly going comically wide as he stuttered, “Aren’t we supposed to use codenames?”

“I don’t know,” Jun shrugged after a moment’s hesitation. “Should we?”

They both looked to Jeonghan as though expecting him to have the answer to whatever question they were asking when he was already beyond bewildered.

“Um …” he mumbled, feeling obligated to at least say something. “I promise that, even if I knew who these people were, I wouldn’t be repeating any of this.” 

He couldn’t imagine either of these two lifting a finger to hurt him. They seemed too happy and bouncy and shiny. Seungcheol, maybe. Joshua, definitely. But these two? Never.

And his suspicions were only confirmed when Jun waved his hand in unbothered dismission, “Oh, you’re going to end up meeting most of us anyway. Or at least, those of us who are important.”

He winked at Seokmin who only rolled his eyes in reply.

“There are eleven of us,” Jun continued, playfully kicking the medic up the backside when he turned around to get his own tea. “Not including Cheol. I’m Junhui and this is the good doctor, Seokmin. Or DK when we’re out in the field.”

Jeonghan nodded, still a little too cold and fuzzy to process much more than a few words at a time, but he did pick up on the way Junhui almost sounded like he was singing when he spoke. His voice was lilted and pitched whereas Seokmin’s was loud and echoed off the stone walls.

“You’ve met Mingyu and Minghao … Hansol, too, I think …” Junhui listed, stroking a lazy finger over his chin. 

“And the lovely Shua, of course,” DK added and Jeonghan couldn’t tell if the use of the word ‘lovely’ was sarcastic or not in his description of Shua or … Joshua.

“And me,” came a much deeper voice from the doorway and Jeonghan instantly felt his stomach swoop at the harsh snap of the Daegu dialect.

Seungcheol looked much healthier than the last time they’d been in each other’s company. His skin was still a little pale, there were heavy bags beneath his eyes and he was definitely favouring his left side as he walked forwards, but he was upright and Jeonghan was impressed.

Joshua was there, too, and Jeonghan barely even had time to register what he was carrying before his wrist was snatched up and confined to a tight metallic ring, the other end of which was fastened to the bed railing.

The action was so fast that Jeonghan couldn’t even blink in the time it took Joshua to handcuff him to the mattress he was sitting on, greatly impeding his tea drinking and causing his heart to spike a little in apprehension. 

There was a collective eye roll from around the room and Junhui gave the second in command an exasperated sigh.

“We still don’t know what part he’s playing in this,” Joshua defended, clearly feeling the need to explain himself despite the fact that nobody had actually expressed any verbal opposition.

And Jeonghan felt his frustration reaching breaking point as he gave the handcuffs a useless tug, looked Joshua straight in the eye and spat out the words, “I already told you. I was walking to my car and then somebody died right in front of me.”

“Sure,” Joshua muttered, sounding less than convinced.

“Anyway,” Seungcheol interjected, laying a hand on Joshua’s shoulder like he was trying to call off the rabid dog inside. “I just dropped by to say thanks … for, uh … patching me up and saving my life and whatever.”

His hand lifted, probably to rub awkwardly at the back of his neck, but it didn’t get there before he doubled over in pain, stitches undoubtedly pulling on injured flesh.

“Fuck,” he hissed through gritted teeth, and Jeonghan saw the way everybody instantly leapt to his aid.

That wasn’t just a group of people doing their jobs. They loved this guy. A lot.

“Lie down,” Joshua urged, taking Seungcheol’s arm and steering him rather forcefully towards the already-occupied bed.

“I’m fine, Shua.”

“You said that the last time, but you know what?” Joshua snapped, pushing his leader down onto the mattress beside a very perturbed Jeonghan. “You fucking weren’t.”

Their shoulders were pressed together, heat transferring from one body to another, and the med student felt his breathing start to quicken, matching perfectly with the pained panting in his ear.

Seungcheol turned his head and only then did it occur to either of them that they were sharing a pillow, inhaling each other’s air and staring directly into each other’s eyes.

His were so dark. Dark and deep and filled with some unnamed emotion that Jeonghan couldn’t quite place but would have thought it most similar to lust. It most definitely sounded cliché but angels were singing behind those eyes.

Jeonghan had no time to dwell on the revelation, however, as Joshua spoke up from where he had the side of Seungcheol’s shirt hitched up, carefully inspecting the wound in his side.

“Sorry I had to put you next to the heathen.”

“Here we go …” Junhui muttered, throwing up his hands in surrender and marching out of the room before the inevitable explosion that Jeonghan provided.

“What exactly is your problem with me?” he snapped, too wary of jostling Seungcheol to try sitting up.

“How can we be so fucking sure that they didn’t plant him there, huh?” Joshua fired straight back, talking as though Jeonghan wasn’t right in front of him. “Has anyone thought of that? A fucking pretty boy thrown into all of this just to bait you, Coups?”

“I was just walking to my car,” Jeonghan growled, feeling his patience draining with every word this boy spewed.

“So you keep saying.”

“I can prove it!”

He’d forgotten all about it, too caught up in the attempted abduction, the emergency medical procedure he’d had to perform at gunpoint and then the eruption of his home, but he’d caught the whole thing on video.

The whole thing.

“It’s on my phone.”

“Let’s see it then,” Joshua demanded, holding out his hand with one eyebrow raised in disbelieving amusement.

Seokmin helped Jeonghan fish his phone from between his and Seungcheol’s bodies and then handed it over. For a moment, Joshua regarded the device with nothing but disgust before tugging his own mobile out of his pocket and raising it to his ear.

“Woozi, I need you to look at something for me.”

Jeonghan could hear an angry explosion of swears and slurs filtering through the speakers before the dial tone droned one last resounding conclusion and Joshua hung up, scowling at Seungcheol’s weak chuckle.

“You know Jihoon prefers email.”

The ever-so-subtle widening of Joshua’s eyes told Jeonghan that yet another codename had been translated and he added ‘Jihoon’ to the steadily growing list in his head.

“He never shouts when it’s Jun,” Joshua pouted, the first time Jeonghan was seeing his face do anything but scowl. It did wonders for his appearance. 

Barely five minutes later, the door bounced open and the person Jeonghan assumed to be Jihoon/Woozi stormed in. He was barely over five feet with a childlike face and a head of flossy pink hair that somehow coincided with his frown of irritated displeasure.

And he had a mouth on him, Jeonghan realised, as soon as the avalanche of expletives started to tumble.

“This had better be fucking good, you asshole, because I was smack dab in the middle of something really quite fucking beneficial for all our motherfucking a – oh … hi, there.”

His expression changed in a heartbeat, ironing out slightly as he shuffled over to the new arrival, analysing him with a great deal of interest. He was holding a cup of soda in one hand and a pair of headphones in the other which he quickly looped around his neck so he had an appendage free with which to greet Jeonghan. 

And Jeonghan tried to reciprocate the gesture only for his arm to be yanked backwards with a metallic clink, the skin of his wrist throbbing as the cuffs bit into fragile flesh.

Jihoon took one look the set of restraints before his head snapped up in Joshua’s direction and all hell broke loose.

“The fuck is wrong with your psychopathic ass? Why the fuck would you cuff him?”

“He’s the enemy!”

“He saved our fucking leader’s ass! What the fuck would we have done if he’d let Cheol die?”

“We have DK.”

“Don’t be fucking stupid, Shua!” Jihoon spluttered furiously, and Jeonghan was stunned that anybody besides Seungcheol had the guts to speak to Joshua like that. “DK couldn’t stitch a button to a shirt. No offence, Seokminnie.”

Seokmin, who had stayed silent throughout the entire exchange, merely nodded in approval, and Seungcheol was still chuckling even as the two alpha personalities continued to argue back and forth.

Only when things looked like they had the possibility of getting physical did he step in.

“Jihoon, can you get us a full scan of this phone? Calls, messages, and the video from that night? We need to authenticate Jeonghan’s story.” 

“You got it, Cheol,” Jihoon agreed, throwing the middle finger as he took Jeonghan’s phone and stormed out of the room.

“He’s never nice to me,” Joshua sulked, his lips puffing out in another pout and Jeonghan was trying to figure out whether he even knew he was doing it.

“It’s cute, isn’t it?” Seungcheol whispered from beside him, also watching Joshua’s lightning fast switches from dark and dangerous to cute and cuddly. “Don’t tell him I said that.”

The leader’s eye flickered in a wink before he swung his legs over the side of the bed and took Seokmin’s offer of a helping hand to get him to his feet.

Another boy Jeonghan hadn’t met appeared as if from nowhere with a dejected look on his face and a distinctive slump in his shoulders. He wasn’t much taller than Jihoon but he was just as cute.

He huffed out a sigh and walked straight into Joshua’s chest, rubbing his nose in the taller boy’s T-Shirt before Joshua gave in and wrapped him in his arms, all exhaustion and frustration dissipating at once.

“What is it, Channie?” he cooed, running his fingers through the kid’s tufty hair.

Jeonghan didn’t need to hear anymore to know that this was the baby.

“I just wanna shoot someone …” the kid cried mournfully, eliciting a chuckle from Joshua. “Just once.”

“But we don’t need you to shoot anyone right now, Channie.”

“Fine …” ‘Channie’ pouted, pulling away from the embrace and crossing his arms like some kind of stroppy toddler. “I have news from Soonyoung since apparently all I’m good for is being your glorified fucking postman.”

“What’s the news, Chan?” Seungcheol smirked, playfully mussing the kid’s hair.

“Some guys were sniffing around Seungkwan’s club earlier. Said they were looking for a girly man with red hair and a pretty face. That’s all they gave for descriptions.”

Jeonghan felt his blood run cold. Colder than it had been when the hypothermia was in control.

“Why do they want him?” Seungcheol demanded, tone suddenly dangerously quiet as he shot Jeonghan a brief glance.

“Uh … Well, about that,” Chan mumbled, shuffling from foot to foot. “We have an ID on the … uh, the dead guy …” 

“Shit … Who is it?”

“Um … It’s … Geumjae …”

Jeonghan expected some kind of collective gasp of horror, but there was nothing. From anyone.

“Never heard of him,” Joshua chipped in, brow furrowed in confusion.

“You may know him as Junki,” Chan continued nervously, now nibbling on his bottom lip. “Uh … Min Junki …”

And there was the reaction Jeonghan was waiting for.

“Fuck!” Seungcheol shouted, turning away from everything and everyone, probably so nobody could see the fear on his face. “Of course, it’s the fucking Mins … Fuck!”

“Get Minghao and Jun on recon. Stat!” Joshua barked and Chan inclined his head, spinning on his heel and dashing from the room.

Jeonghan just sat there, blinking, trying to process what was happening. Seungcheol was scrubbing his face over his hands, Joshua was already on the phone and Seokmin had gotten paper white.

“I’m assuming this is bad,” Jeonghan whispered and Seungcheol spun around, his mouth stretched in a thin grim line as he nodded.

“We are talking about the most powerful gang in Daegu,” he explained, shaking his head as he spoke. “They’re looking for you. And after they find you, I’m next.”

Jeonghan gulped, “Why not before?” 

“They’re systematic like that,” Seungcheol smirked bitterly, already spiralling into his own memories as he absently massaged his injured side.

He’d worked with the Mins long enough to know how they operated. During his time in Daegu, he’d been predominantly employed by the Chois but the Mins were globally infamous for their strategies and the speed at which they operated.

By now, they would already know that their guy had been killed in his domain and they would want Jeonghan for confirmation of the crime.

He was the only witness but, unfortunately for him, Sungjong’s gang knew exactly the same thing. They would want him for a different reason: to kill him and eradicate the only person who could confirm Seungcheol’s innocence.

This was big. And bad. About as bad as it had ever gotten. Seungcheol had a bullseye painted on his back from this moment on and if the Mins were the ones who’d put it there then he might as well start picking out headstones.

They were honourable in their killings. Or at least, they had been when he’d worked for them. They wouldn’t dole out any punishments without proof but this was very different.

This was a declaration of war. 

“Shit …”


	6. Roasted Beef

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TRIGGER WARNING!!!  
> This chapter contains potentially triggering content such as implications of past non-con and graphic gory descriptions. Please do not read if you know this will upset you

Jeonghan had begun to doze off again when Seungcheol, Joshua and Seokmin finally left after several long minutes of quiet muttering and worried eyes. He was feeling a lot better and a lot warmer but still flat out exhausted.

And there was also the small matter of being handcuffed to a bed.

He tried not to think about the fact that he was basically a hostage, that Hyuk had tried to call him, that his apartment was burnt to the ground and that he had missed so many shifts at the hospital that he was probably fired now.

But more concerning than all of that put together was the knowledge that the Mins – whoever the fuck they were – were looking for him.

Hyuk was sort of a Min. His mother was at least, but Jeonghan had a hard time remembering whether or not she was from Daegu. He had just automatically assumed they were all native to Jeju.

He shook his head and let out a long sigh from between pursed lips. He was being ridiculous. Maybe all Mins were descended from the same bloodline but that didn’t mean that every one of them belonged to some sinister gang.

It was difficult to think rationally when everything around him felt so surreal. It was like a nightmare had taken residence in his reality and there was absolutely no way to wake himself up.

There had been criminals – actual criminals – discussing drug trades and murder plots right in front of him. They were killers. Most of them – if not all of them – would have killed somebody at some point.

The guy with the sword had most definitely killed somebody if the blood on his blade was anything to go by. Joshua and Seungcheol would have a body count higher than anyone but, even though he was cuffed to a bed, Jeonghan had never felt safer than he did with these people. 

And then a deafening, strangled, pitiful wail of anguish cut through his thought process.

It was getting louder and closer with every passing second and, with it, came the unmistakable stench of diesel and sizzling flesh.

Before he’d started his residency at Seoul Private, he’d had no idea that the human body could produce such an array of odors, all of which he’d smelt at some point during his time there.

The pungent metallicness of blood, the rancid sourness of vomit, the stinking pong of actual shit and the one smell he knew he wasn’t ever going to forget.

Even if he were to lose the memory of every single experience from birth until present day, he would probably still be able to identify the stench of burning human flesh.

It started with the sulphurous whiff of singed hair that quickly gave way to the barbecue aroma of bubbling skin. Usually, the roasted beef smell of the fatty tissues wasn’t far behind and then there was the sickeningly sweet waft of fried pork as muscle began to detach from bone.

Jeonghan gagged instinctively, his mind assaulted with memories of the girl who had been carted into the emergency department during one of his first shifts as a resident. She had been so badly burnt that her bubbled and blackened skin had simply sloughed off at the slightest touch. They hadn’t been able to move her without handfuls of her flesh coming away in their hands.

She hadn’t made it.

The commotion outside reached a climax and then the door was thrown open, the person Jeonghan remembered as Wonwoo scrambling to hold it open so the huge guy – Mingyu – could stagger over the threshold, Seokmin right on his heels.

It took several moments for Jeonghan to realise that the bundle of tattered cloths in Mingyu’s arms was the source of the smell. And the screaming. 

There was a table in the centre of the room that was laden with various bottles, tubes and other medical equipment, but it took the combined effort of Wonwoo and Seokmin to clear it completely in less than ten seconds so Mingyu could lay the lump of whimpering flesh on the sterile surface.

Paralysed into stunned silence, Jeonghan caught a glimpse of the poor soul’s face and felt his stomach flip.

Hansol.

His breathing was ragged and dangerously harsh, spittle flying from between his teeth every time he exhaled, and virtually all of the skin from his sternum to his knees was either barbecued to charcoal or missing entirely.

The smell was putrid.

“Give him something!” Mingyu roared, holding Hansol’s head still as the boy continued to writhe and shriek in unbearable agony.

“Shit … like what … Like what?” Seokmin fretted, nothing but pure panic on his face and violent tremors in his hands.

It was a mercy to everybody in the room when Hansol’s body arched off the table only to immediately flop into a lifeless heap as his mind finally agreed that now was the time to pass out. 

“Um … I uh … wet some towels,” Seokmin croaked out, his voice cracked and his breathing almost as erratic as Hansol’s. “And … uh … bring me some ice.”

Jeonghan winced. Whatever this kid was planning, he was definitely going to do more harm than good but Wonwoo was standing there, staring at his comrade’s body, with his eyes flashing dangerously. If anybody pissed him off, he was going to start shooting.

So Jeonghan bit his tongue and watched with growing dread as Mingyu fetched the requested equipment. Seokmin dunked the first rag into the ice water, wrung it out and then tried to smooth it over Vernon’s thigh.

The skin just slid right off.

“Oh, god …” Seokmin whimpered as Wonwoo’s face turned an entire shade paler. “Help … Help me get his shirt off …”

He took two great fistfuls of the fabric, preparing to rip it open, and Jeonghan couldn’t watch them tear any more flesh from that boy’s body.

“Stop!” he shouted, shuffling as far down the bed as his cuffs would allow. “Stop! You’re only going to make it worse!”

“Shit … fuck … thank fuck you’re still here,” Seokmin gasped out, staggering over and grabbing hold of Jeonghan’s hand only to remember why he hadn’t just gotten up in the first place. “Shit … Where’s Joshua?”

“We … we can’t …” Mingyu stuttered, his mask of intimidation starting to slip. “It’s Hansol … He’s going to go ballistic.”

“We have to. I need Jeonghan and he has the key to the cuffs.” 

Mingyu looked torn, fighting some kind of inner conflict in his head, but the decision was made for him when Hansol’s eyes suddenly flew open and the screaming started up all over again.

“Fuck … okay, I’m going.”

Wonwoo was still yet to move. Was still yet to do anything more than stand stock still like some kind of murderous gargoyle, the anger visibly boiling higher and higher inside of him.

“What do I do?” Seokmin pleaded with Jeonghan. “Tell me what to do … Please, tell me what to do!”

Jeonghan opened his mouth but before he had the chance to utter a single word, Mingyu was back with Joshua and Minghao right behind him, both of their jaws dropping when they saw the carnage that lay before them.

“What the fuck …” Joshua breathed, his knees starting to tremble.

“Shua, please, it can wait!” Seokmin cried, pointing desperately at Jeonghan’s bed as he stroked Hansol’s hair and made useless shushing noises against the screams. “We need Jeonghan!”

Joshua didn’t move, his voice even quieter as he choked out the words, “What happened?”

“Joshua!” Jeonghan shouted, trying to snap the only person who could free him out of whatever vortex had sucked him in.

Hansol was running out of time.

Minghao seemed to be the only person thinking clearly as he dug his hand into Joshua’s pocket and found the key, immediately lunging over to Jeonghan and unlocking the cuffs from around his bruised wrist.

The movement seemed to finally bring Joshua back down to Earth.

“What the fuck happened?” he bellowed, shoving Mingyu aside so he could take his place beside Hansol’s head. “Who did this?”

Jeonghan had no concept of pain in his ankle as he staggered over to the table, wasting no time in bending over the roasted body and trying to take account of just how bad the situation was. 

It looked and smelt a million times worse up close.

Joshua had one hand against Hansol’s cheek and the other clasping the top of his head, both of them crying but only one of them in danger of ripping his vocal cords with the volume at which he was howling.

The person Jeonghan had thought was incapable of emotion looked on the verge of collapse as he glared up at the one person who could save his baby’s life with tears streaking down his cheeks.

“Save him,” he demanded. “Save him or I kill you myself.”

Jeonghan didn’t allow himself to feel fear. He’d had his life threatened before when families of patients who were dead or dying got overwhelmed and succumbed to their grief. He was no stranger to protective anger.

He could do this. He hoped he could do this.

Most of the burns on Hansol’s body were third degree. They wouldn’t hurt since the nerves were already dead but it was the scattering of pink scaly skin at the edges of the missing flesh that had Jeonghan fearful for Hansol’s blood pressure.

A little longer like this and his heart could give out.

Seokmin had none of the tools they were going to need to keep this kid alive, and this wasn’t a superficial stab wound, simplistic and textbook to patch up.

This was a literal race against time, a life or death situation, and these people were all looking to him as if he could perform some sort of miracle procedure that would just heal Hansol’s potentially lethal injuries.

He could only hope that he wasn’t going to let them down.

For his sake as much as Hansol’s. 

“Okay …” he gasped out, lunging for the box of latex gloves hanging from the wall and tugging them over his trembling fingers. “What kind of pain relievers do you have?”

Seokmin still looked like he was having a mental breakdown, hands fisted in his hair and widened eyes stuck to Hansol’s face, “Uh … um … oxy? Morphine …”

“Good. Get me that. Does anyone have a pen and paper? I need somebody to run to the drug store for me!”

Minghao presented him with the equipment and he wasted no time in scribbling down a list of ointments, creams, bandages and antibiotics that he was going to need if he even stood a chance at saving this kid.

“I need an oxygen mask and a bag of saline,” he commanded, feeling his hands start to steady and his breathing start to slow as his inner doctor took control.

“Got it …”

The stuff was deposited on the table beside Hansol’s feet. The screaming had steadily been losing strength and volume and now resembled nothing more than staggered breaths and hoarse whimpers forced out through teeth that were grinding so violently they had every possibility of breaking.

“Shh …” Joshua was whispering, massaging Hansol’s scalp with one hand and thumbing away the tears with the other. “It’s alright, buddy. We’re going to have you better in no time.”

He raised his head and glared at Jeonghan who refused to make eye contact, dragging in a deep inhale and reminding himself that now was not the time to fight with Joshua. Even if he was being a Grade A dipshit.

“Okay …”

He grabbed the morphine first and took several seconds to assess the damage done to both Hansol’s arms, ascertaining that the right seemed to have sustained fewer burns out of the two.

Sanitising the area was going to be painful as hell but Jeonghan pushed the thought to the back of his mind as he dabbed a cotton ball in rubbing alcohol, shot Joshua a brief glance and then gently starting to clean the inside of Hansol’s elbow, blowing to soothe the burn.

The kid jerked violently, his hands leaping to defend himself but, fortunately for Jeonghan, Joshua took hold of both limbs and held them tightly, shushing all the while.

Jeonghan counted out the morphine milligrams filling up the syringe. Just enough to make Hansol comfortable and he could tell it was starting to work when the grimace slowly slipped from the boy’s face, his jaw went slack and his eyes slid closed.

Ideally, he should have a breathing tube down his throat but, given the current conditions, performing any kind of surgical procedure held more of a risk than a chance of doing any good so Jeonghan settled for slinging the oxygen mask over Hansol’s face instead.

Cleaning a pair of scissors, he began to carefully slice through what remained of his patient’s clothes, wincing whenever a particularly large piece of flesh came away and left a patch of welted pink in its wake.

He could only be thankful that Joshua was too distracted to notice how this stranger was butchering the kid he seemed to be willing to kill for.

The muscle of Hansol’s thigh was almost completely exposed, sticking out in the open and telling Jeonghan that a skin graft was probably going to be a necessity later down the line. The risk of infection was sky high.

“Is there no chance we can go to a hospital?” he questioned the room at large. “There’s only so much I can do here.”

“What do you think?” Joshua snarled, and Jeonghan knew he shouldn’t have expected anything else. 

It felt like an eternity passed before Minghao finally returned from the pharmacy, the bags swinging from his grip packed to bursting with all the supplies he’d been sent for but Jeonghan was at a loss.

The situation was so dire that he couldn’t quite figure out where to begin. With the girl he’d help treat at the hospital, this was about as far as they’d gotten before her lungs collapsed and her heart gave out.

He eyed Hansol’s chest nervously, watching the stuttering rise and fall and wishing he had some kind of heart monitor to keep track.

“Jeonghan?” Joshua called and, for the first time that night, there was fear in his voice.

“Okay … Uh, yeah … Minghao, crush this up in some of the saline, then strain it and get it into a syringe for me,” Jeonghan ordered, running on nothing but adrenaline as he delegated tasks at lightning speed. “Seokmin, help me scrape off the dead skin.”

They obeyed him without question, bodies racing around each other while Joshua kept silent vigil beside Hansol’s head, constantly running his shaking fingers through the boy’s blackened hair.

Jeonghan could only thank God that Hansol was unconscious as he and Seokmin both seized a pair of tweezers and started picking at the crusted skin. The smell was unbearable and Seokmin looked as if he was about to vomit but he powered through.

They worked in silence, save for the occasional instruction or whispered curse, and no less than two and a half hours later, they finally stepped away.

The antibiotics had been administered, the burns were slathered in ointment and Hansol’s stomach and thighs were bound in gauze, discoloured fluids seeping through from the underside. There was nothing more Jeonghan could do.

He would have to clean the burns every few hours and hope for the best. 

“Alright,” he breathed out, bracing his hands on his knees and taking several deep inhales. “Seokmin, I’ll need you back here in three hours to help me do the re-dressings so don’t go too far.”

The pain in his ankle returned as the last dregs of adrenaline drained from his body and he stumbled backwards, collapsing onto the bed and allowing his back to slam against the mattress.

There was a fan hanging from the ceiling, circulating the air in the bunker and filling the entire room with the stench of a burning boy. And before Jeonghan knew what was happening, he was crying. 

He had never been an overly emotional person.

This was probably the first time he’d cried since this entire nightmare started and he wasn’t exactly in agony – not like Hansol had been – but his body still hurt, he hadn’t showered in days, a notorious gang was out to kill him, he couldn’t call his roommate, people were constantly shouting, Joshua hadn’t stopped threatening his life and he could still lose this kid.

It was all too much.

The silent tears developed quickly into heaving breaths and hiccupped sobs and once he’d started, it was impossible to stop. Somewhere in the back of his head, he identified the symptoms as that of a panic attack and the thought actually made him laugh. Could his luck get any worse?

The timing was just fucking fantastic. He was lying on this bed, sobbing and hyperventilating, when he should be monitoring his patient. Maybe he wasn’t cut out for medicine after all. Maybe he should have studied law like his parents wanted.

Seoul’s law firm was all the way across town. If he had just been walking from there that night rather than the hospital then, right now, he would be lying in bed, waiting for his nine to five shift to start and then he would be able to sit down for a nice lengthy lunch break and the only emergency he would be required to deal with were a few all-nighters of pouring over law books with a coffee mug in front of him.

He should have done law. 

“Hey,” came a surprisingly soft voice from above him and Jeonghan opened his eyes to see Joshua standing at the end of the bed next to the bandaged ankle that lay propped against the mattress. 

It was throbbing like a bitch and his other foot was starting to fall asleep from where it was resting against the floor.

“Are you alright?” Joshua asked, just as gently.

And Jeonghan laughed again as he heaved himself into a sitting position, “I could be better.”

“Yeah … Well …”

It was only then that he realised just how quiet the room had gotten. Everybody seemed to have left, either to throw up or get some air, and the only sound was the soft sucking of the oxygen tank propped against Hansol’s table/bed.

Jeonghan saw the way Joshua looked at that kid. Saw the bags beneath his eyes, the terror masked by anger, the classic expression of a family member watching their loved one suffer unimaginable pain.

“Is he … Is he your brother or …?” Jeonghan asked cautiously, smiling sympathetically when Joshua gave a sort of watery chuckle and shook his head.

“In every way but biological.”

So, they really were a family. These people. These murderers. These thugs and gangsters. The supposed bad guys.

“Hey … uh … I did my best,” Jeonghan spoke up again, motioning pathetically towards Hansol’s prone body bathing in the brightness of the lamps they’d set up around the table. “But this is sort of serious.”

“I know,” Joshua murmured, still without moving his gaze from the patient. “You live by the rocket launcher, you die by the rocket launcher, I guess.”

“That means Minghao will quite literally die by a sword,” Jeonghan scoffed, trying to inject humour into a situation where humour shouldn’t be injected, but he felt his confidence soar a little when Joshua’s lips twitched in a feeble smirk.

“It’s the job,” he shrugged. “I love my team but, you know … it’s the job.”

Jeonghan couldn’t exactly figure out when he must have blacked out since he’d clearly missed some kind of personality transplant here. Less than an hour ago, Joshua had been itching to press the barrel of a gun to his head and pull the trigger and now they were having some kind of bonding moment.

He looked sad, Jeonghan noticed. Sad and resigned and it was somehow comforting to know that even the toughest warrior could feel emotion, too.

“Then … why?” Jeonghan croaked. “If it’s so dangerous, why do you do this?”

“Some of us didn’t have a choice,” came the solemn reply. “Cheol was born into it, I was tossed in as a kid and some of the others chose it. Hansol … Hansol just wanted to be a part of something. He just wanted to belong.”

“Tossed into it?” Jeonghan echoed carefully, hoping that maybe he was about to get an insight into why this particular nut was so hard to crack.

There was a pause that dragged on for so long that the doctor started to think he wouldn’t get an answer but then Joshua heaved a whoosh of air in through his nose and said,

“I was kidnapped. Lived in the US, just playing in the park with my friends and these guys tackled me into a van. Before I knew it, I was on a plane bound for Seoul. I thought about running, about telling, but they had me following orders by the end of the first week. I won’t go into the nitty gritty for you. Just know that the world is no place for pretty boys.”

Jeonghan didn’t know what to say in response to that. He could read between the lines, untangle some of the inferences and make a vague assumption as to what Joshua had been through but it was too horrible to dwell on.

So instead he sat there, studying that face and the lines that were engraved in the skin. Too deep. Too deep for one so young. Jeonghan could tell he was stuck up in his head, circling the memories as he stared resolutely at Hansol’s body, and suddenly the signs of trauma were too loud to ignore.

“So do you guys have, like, a secret code?” he asked in an attempt to change the subject and bring Joshua back to reality.

The scoff he received in response wasn’t cold. Not this time. Instead, it held a hint of amusement.

“What do you think this is? An Austin Powers movie?”

“Well, I mean … you’re a bunch of twenty-something-year-olds running a legitimate mafia,” Jeonghan insisted, hurriedly wiping at the tear tracks on his face. “I think you should have a code.” 

Joshua rolled his eyes.

“Like … okay … Instead of ‘money’ … right? … you can say ‘muffins’ and instead of ‘kill him’, you can say … uhm … ‘prickly cactus’.”

And this time, Joshua laughed and Jeonghan felt like he’d just won the Olympics.

“And instead of drugs we say milky mercury?”

The med student wrinkled his nose, “That’s absurd.”

“And prickly cactus isn’t?”

“Okay, let me try … uhm … if I was in trouble, I’d say ‘funky town’ and if I was hurt … err … I’d say I was taking a shower,” Jeonghan concluded, spreading his arms as though awaiting some kind of applause for his intelligence.

“So, right now, you’re taking a shower in funky town, huh?”

Jeonghan felt his expression suddenly flash back to seriousness at the stark reminder of his predicament but he ironed it out fairly quickly and nodded, “Well, yeah, I suppose you could say that.”

Joshua rolled his eyes yet again. It seemed to be one of his favourite pastimes.

“How did we end up here?” he muttered under his breath and Jeonghan realised he was asking himself the same question.

The comfortable conversation was cut short by the ringing of a phone and, after plucking it from his pocket, Joshua raised it to his ear as he watched Jeonghan sidling across the room to check on Hansol.

“Shua,” came Seungcheol’s deadly hiss from the other end of the line. “Meeting room now.”

Joshua wasn’t one to hesitate. He wanted to find out what had happened to Hansol just as badly as everybody else did. 

“I need to go,” he shot over at Jeonghan who raised his head in surprise. “And I don’t think I need to tell you that if you do anything to him or you try to run, I will put a bullet through your head.”

Jeonghan huffed out a noncommittal, “yeah, yeah”, before going straight back to his work and Joshua had to hand it to him: he was brave.

It took Seungcheol’s second in command less than five minutes to make it to the conference room and, by then, the projector was already emitting a gentle whirring hum as it maintained the image plastered over the opposite wall.

Joshua seemed to be the last to arrive and he took his seat silently, inclining his head in response to Seungcheol’s nod before the leader clicked a few buttons on the remote in his hand and the video started to play.

It was obviously a feed that Jihoon had found somewhere and, by the looks of it, it was angled from the wall of one of the buildings in the street Hansol and Mingyu had been sent to.

Mingyu’s truck was a few spaces down from Hansol’s slick silver sports car, strategically placed so that nobody who was watching would think they were working in cohorts with each other. 

A few seconds into the recording, both vehicle owners emerged from the office on the left-hand side of the road, Hansol clutching the files he must have obtained from the traders they were meeting with. 

The two of them exchanged a few words before separating and sliding into their respective automobiles, and then it happened.

No sooner had Hansol got his door shut, a car shot past him at illegal speeds and something silver sailed through the air in a graceful arc before clattering to the ground and sliding right beneath Hansol’s wheels.

The explosion was horrific.

The entire vehicle rocked to the side, almost tipping over from the force of the eruption as flames engulfed the engine from the axels to the roof. A second blast shattered the passenger-side window, sending glass spewing over the tarmac, and thick black smoke started billowing into the air.

Mingyu’s frantic figure was just about visible in the chaos as he scrambled out of his own car and sprinted up the street, taking hold of the door handle with both hands and tugging for all he was worth. It looked like it had taken a few tries but, at last, he staggered backwards, dragging Hansol’s writhing body with him.

Fists clenched in his lap, Joshua glanced over at where Mingyu sat, resolutely refusing to look at the screen, and he saw for the first time that the kid’s hands and arms were a blazing angry red and speckled with blisters.

“Soonyoung is IDing the vehicle,” Jihoon declared from behind his laptop.

Joshua didn’t need to glance at the screen to know he was going through security servers, searching for a clear image of the number plates so he could relay the information to Soonyoung and they could catch the motherfuckers who were responsible.

“Shua,” Seungcheol spoke up, instantly drawing all attention to the person whose name he’d called. “How’s Hansol?”

“He’s … uh … stable,” Joshua hurried to explain, pausing to allow the sighs of relief to ripple around the table. “The doctor says we need to change the bandages every few hours and keep reapplying the ointment but … uh … I … I don’t think he can handle it, though.”

No sooner had the words left his mouth did Minghao let out an infuriated huff of exasperation and spat something in Mandarin that no one but Junhui could possibly understand. But, going off the way the older boy’s mouth tightened, Joshua could assume it was an insult.

“I’m sure the doctor’s doing the best he can, Shua,” Jihoon added lazily, clearly having had more than enough of Joshua’s bullshit. “So you can stop being a dick for once in your life.”

“No,” Joshua defended instantly, realising that they’d misunderstood him. “I mean –”

“That’s enough, Shua,” Seungcheol interrupted. “You’ve done nothing but make him uncomfortable since he’s been here but he’s saved us twice now so grow the fuck up.”

He rose from his chair at the head of the table and circled around to stand behind Jihoon, bracing one hand on the hacker’s shoulder as he bent over slightly to see the screen.

Knowing when they were dismissed, the others slowly filed out of the room with sighs of exhaustion and muttered threats of murder towards the people who had hurt one of their own, and Joshua was left with the remaining two. 

“The second explosion was from his own launcher overheating,” Jihoon relayed, trained eyes scanning the short report that had popped up. “Soonyoung got his buddy, Shownu, to analyse the car wreckage over in the chop shop.”

Seungcheol grimaced, pinching the bridge of his nose and exhaling deeply in the way he always did when he was both furious and feeling guilty.

“This was a warning,” he muttered under his breath.

“From whom?”

“I don’t know,” came the ever-so-reassuring reply. “But whoever it is, they’re telling us that they can do more.”

It could be Sungjong’s gang. It could already be the Mins. 

They were fucked.

“Hey, Shua,” Seungcheol called, drawing his right hand man from the depths of his mind. “I need you to stay here with Jihoon, Seokmin and the doctor. The rest of the guys have recon and I need to attend a meeting.”

Joshua stared at him, “Why aren’t I going to the meetings?”

That was his job. He was permanently glued to Seungcheol’s side, tasked with assisting and protecting him whenever he needed. Being the leader of Seoul’s most powerful gang meant there was always somebody trying to hurt him. It was Joshua’s job to prevent that.

“I have Junhui. I’ll be fine,” was the curtly dismissive response he got. “I just need you here right now.”

Joshua wanted to argue, but he didn’t. 

Seungcheol saying that he was taking Junhui instead was basically like saying he didn’t want to be anywhere near Joshua at this moment. And Joshua knew when he wasn’t wanted, when he wasn’t needed, when he was becoming a burden.

It was in his training: Be a good little boy, be seen and not heard, make Master happy.

So, Joshua gritted his teeth and stormed from the room, missing the soft sigh and sad glance that Seungcheol sent towards his retreating back. 

He had to take several regulated breaths before he felt prepared to be back in the med bay with Hansol’s rotting skin and that goddamn doctor. Joshua had no idea what it was about that guy but he was finding it increasingly more difficult to snap at him.

In the few moments before he had leapt into action and saved Hansol’s life, the fear in his eyes had been second to none and, for a split second, they’d understood each other perfectly.

And then when Jeonghan broke down afterwards, Joshua watched him trying and failing to pull himself together and only succeeding for the sake of Joshua himself. He was even cracking jokes mere minutes after crying his eyes out.

He was an enigma.

They’d basically abducted him, forced him to treat an injured gunman, left him to die and then come back to pull him from the pile of charcoaled rubble that used to resemble a house.

And what had been his first instinct when he’d seen Hansol lying on that table, screaming his lungs out? To help him. Either he was out of his fucking mind or … Joshua didn’t know what he was.

The door handle to the med bay was smeared in dried blood but it had been like that for a while so Joshua paid it no notice as he shouldered it open and stepped into the bunker.

True to his character, Jeonghan was stooped over Hansol, checking on his IV lines and ensuring his bandages were just the right tightness. He’d pulled a pillow from the bed and had slid it beneath the kid’s head, trying to make him more comfortable since they couldn’t risk moving him from the table. 

Joshua saw the slight tremor to his hands as he readjusted the oxygen mask and the unsteadiness in his stance as he stumbled back and forth, and only then did he remember that Jeonghan had, just that morning , been recovering from hypothermia.

“Hey, why don’t you go have a shower and then take a nap?” he asked, cutting through the silence and eliciting a startled yelp from Jeonghan’s throat, a sound that quickly turned to a groan as he scuffed his injured foot against the floor.

“If it’s not a gun, it’s a heart attack. When are you going to stop trying to kill me?”

“I’m offering you a fucking shower,” Joshua snapped back. “Take it before I change my mind.”

He tried to filter his trademark growl into his tone but, for some reason, he didn’t quite make it. The only emotion he seemed to be able to project at this moment was sadness. It made him feel weak. 

“Everything go okay with the meeting?” Jeonghan questioned, raking his hair out of his eyes.

“No.”

“Oh … I’m sor –” 

“Don’t …” Joshua cut him off, holding up a restraining hand that had the boy falling silent at once. “Just don’t, Jeonghan … I can’t right now. Have the shower. Please. I’ll go find you something to wear.”

Jeonghan must have been confused at the way his moods seemed to swing from one extreme to another in a matter of moments but he didn’t voice his thoughts as he limped obediently towards the showers Joshua gestured to.

At this point, Yoon Jeonghan would have settled for a bucket of ice water if it meant getting the blood and grime off his skin, but somewhere out there in the universe, some misguided angel with crooked wings appeared to have decided that he’d suffered enough.

The sensation of hot water pounding against the knots in his spine was heavenly and he watched the river run red before disappearing down the plughole between his feet as he scrubbed the soap suds into his hair.

When he got out, he found the hoodie and a pair of jeans strewn carelessly by the door and he briefly wished Joshua had provided something a little more comfortable but he supposed that beggars couldn’t be choosers.

He slithered into the jeans that were probably Joshua’s and the hoodie that smelt like Seungcheol. His mind did a quick double take as he questioned when it had categorised that man’s scent but it was unmistakable: natural and a little soapy. Just … clean. And warm. 

Jeonghan attacked his hair with the towel, drying the tangled strands as best he could before stepping out of the bathroom and back into the dimly-lit med bay that he supposed would be his prison cell from now on.

As far as he could tell, most of the team had disappeared on some kind of mission, leaving him with the cranky tech guy, the even crankier guy with the gun, the burn victim and the sort-of-but-not-really doctor. 

Jeonghan cracked his back, trying to make the most of his freedom before he limped back to his bed and waited miserably for Joshua to cuff him to the railing again, but, from where he was sitting at Hansol’s side, nose buried in his laptop, Joshua merely raised an eyebrow to acknowledge Jeonghan’s arrival before returning to his work.

And suddenly Jeonghan didn’t feel quite like a prisoner anymore.


	7. Not The First Rodeo

The meeting would have been a complete disaster if not for Junhui.

Seungcheol had been on the verge of shooting the man he’d been instructed to refer to as ‘Charles’ right from the moment they’d met, and that desire only grew as the discussions proceeded. Bloodshed had never been the intended outcome but he’d been perfectly willing to toss that aside just to feed his own fury.

Just over twenty of their best men, handpicked by Junhui himself, had the place surrounded with guns at the ready should anything go awry, but Charles also had his own entourage flanking him on all sides so they were relatively equal.

With the influx of foreigners invading the city, it was getting increasingly difficult to regulate the drug traffic and Charles was supposed to be the man to help with that issue but he was singularly the most arrogant person Seungcheol had ever met.

He thought himself far superior merely because he was older and _American_ and had more experience in the crime world than Seungcheol did. 

He also referred to his business partner as ‘Young Coups’ instead of ‘S.Coups’ like he’d been instructed and started the majority of his counter arguments with the phrase, ‘back in the States …’

Fortunately for Seungcheol’s bubbling temper, Junhui had been able to handle most of the talking and Charles had seemed to have taken a liking to him so the meeting ended without a single firearm being drawn.

With that particular clusterfuck out of the way, Seungcheol was anxious to return to Joshua’s side and at least try to apologise for his earlier behaviour. Talking to him like he had definitely hadn’t been his intention but the stress of Hansol’s attack had been messing with his mind.

He knew that refusing to let Joshua explain himself and ultimately dismissing him like a disobedient child sent the boy reeling back into memories of the past, but something about Jeonghan had brought his protective instincts to attention.

Maybe it was the fact that he’d found Chan in a similar situation roughly six years back: tied up and out of his depth in the basement of some rundown crack house. He was just a tiny kid with dirt smeared over his face and vibrant purple track marks streaking down his inner arms.

It had taken months to get him weaned off the drugs he’d been forced to take and, at several points in time, Seungcheol had started to wonder whether the boy was a lost cause. But then he had turned into one of their biggest assets, defying any and every expectation.

The entire organisation would take a bullet for that child. Seungcheol would take twelve. And he had no idea why but he was starting to feel the same way about Jeonghan.

Releasing a heavy breath through his nose, he opened the bunker’s heavy metal doors and was instantly struck with a barrage of frantic, rapid-fire Mandarin. 

He barely understood a word but from the way Junhui’s shoulders immediately tensed before he was sprinting off in the direction of the screaming, he deduced that it wasn’t good. 

Following close behind, Seungcheol burst into the training room just in time to see Junhui wrestling Minghao’s sword out of his hands and tossing it out of the way before anybody could get killed.

Minghao was still shouting unintelligible slurs and fighting tooth and nail to escape the arms that Junhui wrapped around his body, resolutely restraining him from causing injury to himself or anyone else.

There were tears on his face and his eyes held that glassy glaze Seungcheol had seen so many times and yet had never plucked up the courage to ask about.

“What’s happening?” he roared over the cacophony, wincing when Minghao’s struggling seemed to increase in ferocity at the sound of his leader’s voice. 

“It’s nothing!” Junhui fired back, but his voice was strained as he struggled to keep Minghao pinned against his chest. “He’ll calm down in a moment!”

It certainly didn’t sound like it and, as he stood in frozen horror, Seungcheol was able to pick up a few of the foreigner’s shrieks as words such as ‘stop’, ‘don’t’ and ‘please’.

“What can I do?” he asked pathetically, wanting to help but afraid of making things worse. “Junhui, what can I do?”

He caught Junhui’s eye over Minghao’s shoulder and, at the shake of the older boy’s head, he finally understood that there was nothing to be done but wait for whatever kind of breakdown this was to end.

Making a mental note to question both foreigners later, Seungcheol stormed from the room, sweeping his fringe out of his face and resisting the urge to punch a wall. It had been a long, long, _long_ day.

He passed Mingyu on his way to the med bay and caught a glimpse of misty eyes and a clenched jaw, and suddenly Minghao’s meltdown made a lot more sense.

Both Mingyu’s forearms were bandaged, there was a small welt just above his left eye and there were scrapes and scratches peppering his face and neck from the shrapnel that had struck him in the explosion.

He and Minghao had a strange relationship. It seemed like they fought over every little thing, occasionally whipping out knives and guns just to prove their points, but they were also the best team in the entire regiment.

They worked flawlessly together, protected and assisted each other, would die for one another, and whether their feelings were platonic or not was yet to be determined but there was no denying that the bond they shared was unbreakable.

Minghao had witnessed the unlawful execution of his entire family back in China and, although he would never admit it, the memories still revisited him every night, drenching him in sweat and leaving him gasping and thrashing in his bed.

Flashbacks were a rarity now, but they still presented themselves whenever something particularly awful happened. Almost losing Hansol and then realising Mingyu could very easily have gone the same way must have broken those walls Minghao was always building around himself.

Seungcheol had visited that particular fact several times himself and the resulting feeling had been less than pleasant.

He didn’t stop Mingyu, knowing he would risk getting a black eye if he even tried to prevent the man from storming down to the target range and emptying a couple of clips into a paper target, and instead slipped into the med bay.

Jeonghan had the sleeves of his hoodie – Seungcheol’s hoodie – rolled up to his elbows and gloves over his hands. His tongue was caught between his teeth in a mask of deep concentration as he gently rubbed a drop of ointment over Hansol’s thigh and covered it in a new bandage.

“I have to leave these up here open a bit, okay?” he murmured, gesturing towards the patient’s exposed chest. “If they sweat too much then you could get an infection.”

Seungcheol was about to ask who he was talking to before he saw the minute tremor from Hansol’s oxygen mask as the kid nodded his head.

“You’re awake …”

Jeonghan glanced up and flashed the newcomer a smile, watching fondly as Seungcheol reached out to rake his fingers through Hansol’s hair.

“Yeah, he opened his eyes a few hours ago. The damage to his trachea isn’t as bad as I first thought so he can talk a little, too.”

Seungcheol gave the burned boy’s hand a gentle squeeze before glancing up to see that Jeonghan was still smiling. His teeth were very straight and his cheek bones were hiked up to his double-lidded eyes. He must have showered at some point, too, since his hair had dried in little waves that tumbled messily around his face.

“How’s the ankle?” Seungcheol asked him.

He’d only come to check on Hansol and make sure that Joshua hadn’t killed their newly-acquired physician but, now that he was here, he was feeling reluctant to leave.

Jeonghan flexed his foot slightly, clearly suppressing a grimace, and then set his heel back on the ground, “It’s not great but I guess it’s fine … uh, thanks for asking.”

Seungcheol nodded slowly.

“How are your stitches?” came the counter question. “You should let me have a look when I’m done with Hansol here.”

Seungcheol nodded again, stepping away from the table and watching as Jeonghan resumed his work.

He was wearing a pair of Joshua’s jeans, reminding Seungcheol that he still needed to apologise.

“Where’s Shua?”

“Oh … He’s with … Jihoon, right? I think that guy Soonyoung called,” Jeonghan offered distractedly and Seungcheol had to admit that he was learning their names surprisingly fast.

“I’ll be right back.”

The cramped space of Jihoon’s recon room was only just down the hallway, giant screens hanging from the walls, keyboards and memory boxes set up in every direction and old radios as well as a few phones and laptops were strewn carelessly about. 

Organised chaos was the phrase that best described it. Jihoon knew where everything was and if anyone so much as breathed in the wrong place, he was sure to know about it.

Joshua was sitting quietly in the corner, staring at one of the only blank walls ahead of him and rhythmically detaching and reattaching the clip of his gun in the way he always did when he was lost inside his head, and that was how Seungcheol knew he’d fucked up.

“Shua?” he whispered, speaking quietly so as not to disturb Jihoon even though the hacker had a headset clamped over his ears.

Joshua’s movements froze for a split second before resuming just as smoothly. If Seungcheol didn’t know him so well, he wouldn’t have noticed the response at all.

“How did the meeting go?”

He was emotionally detaching. It had happened before and it was more than likely going to happen in the future but that didn’t make it any less painful to watch.

“It was a success,” Seungcheol responded, pulling up a chair and sinking into it so that the two of them were on the same level. “I heard that Soonyoung called.” 

“Yeah, he’s finally coming back in. I haven’t seen him in a while.”

Joshua was trying to remain professional and, to an outsider, he would have looked like he was doing a good job but Seungcheol was used to the playful insults and the light-hearted teasing. Anything else just felt out of place.

“Any news?”

“The same. Sungjong’s looking for Jeonghan and, frankly, I’m not quite sure how they haven’t found him yet. We don’t advertise our location but we aren’t exactly hidden either. Not a single one of our guys has been attacked or even approached since Hansol … I can’t figure it out.”

“We’ll talk about it more when Soonyoung gets back,” Seungcheol nodded solemnly, watching Joshua’s fast fingers dismantling his firearm in a matter of seconds. “For now, the only place Jeonghan’s safe is here.”

He expected a huff of exasperation and therefore he was surprised when Joshua inclined his head in agreement.

“I didn’t listen to you earlier,” Seungcheol admitted, deciding that cutting to the chase was better than dancing uselessly around the subject. “And I’m sorry. It won’t happen again. I value your opinion and, to be honest, I need it, too.”

Joshua just nodded again, head down, eyes averted, looking exactly like the submissive he’d been trained to be.

“I apologise,” he said robotically, allowing his weapon to finally rest in his hands. “I shouldn’t have doubted Jeonghan. I was just afraid for his mental state after the panic attack he had.”

Guilt had already been nibbling at Seungcheol’s insides but, at Joshua’s jab, it felt like he was being devoured. He hadn’t been trying to tell him that Jeonghan was incapable, he’d been trying to tell him that Jeonghan needed help.

“I didn’t know,” he said but it was just an excuse. “Next time, I’ll listen to you.”

Joshua showed no response, eyes still fixed on his lap, and Seungcheol glanced up to see Jihoon watching them. The hacker gave a disapproving sigh and returned to his computer screen, head shaking ever so slightly.

Nobody knew Joshua’s entire story. They were only aware of the vague background information he had provided them and he refused to elaborate when questioned but his trauma ran about as deep as it got. 

Usually, it made him dangerous. He held no fear, no remorse and he wasn’t afraid to spill blood when the need presented itself. He was their best fighter, a skilled marksman and loyal to a fault.

But he was flawed, like all of them, by the memories of the past. Half the time, he didn’t even realise he was doing it but he would cross a line, get reprimanded and instantly withdraw, as though afraid of a punishment Seungcheol would never give him. 

Clawing at the exhaustion in his eyes, Seungcheol straightened up from his chair, deciding that Joshua needed time to come back to himself before they reattempted this conversation. He gave his best friend a clap on the shoulder and then dragged himself back into the med bay.

Jeonghan was just peeling off his gloves, Hansol having succumbed to unconsciousness once more, and when he saw Seungcheol, he smiled.

And that smile was doing things to him.

“Remove your shirt,” he ordered, still in doctor-mode. “I’ll be right over.”

Seungcheol obediently perched on the edge of the nearest bed and cautiously wriggled out of his shirt. It had only been just over three days since the stabbing and he knew he hadn’t been resting as he should.

He could already tell that the stitches weren’t healing well. The wound was pink around the edges and the surrounding area was discoloured and the icing on the cake came in the form of Jeonghan’s eyebrows sky rocketing when he saw it.

“That’s not good,” he hissed, scrambling around the little work station and producing another bottle of ointment, a cotton ball and a container labelled peroxide. “This may sting. Lay back.”

Seungcheol reclined against the pillows and, from the new angle, it was impossible to miss the blush that was creeping up Jeonghan’s neck at the sight of the muscles pushing up against the underside of his charge’s skin.

His chest and arms were peppered with old bullet wounds and knife nicks, his dragon tattoo emblazoned over his shoulder beside the still-healing slash from the other night.

“Not your first rodeo?” Jeonghan asked nervously, and Seungcheol chuckled in response.

“Not even close.”

“Uh … This part here looks infected so I need to clean it and redo the dressing. Did Seokmin give you any antibiotics?” 

“Yeah, I took them.”

Seungcheol allowed his eyes to flutter closed at the feel of Jeonghan’s softened fingers wondering over his abdomen, overcome with exhaustion from the day’s events. He can tell the hands are lingering a little longer than necessary over his muscles and he has to suppress a smile.

“There … That should help.” 

He worked fast.

Seungcheol shuffled his elbows beneath him and pushed up into a sitting position, reaching for his shirt and only then realising that his face was barely an inch from Jeonghan’s. He smelled of the Irish spring soap they kept in the bathrooms and also something distinctly … himself.

A delectable shade of red flushed over Jeonghan’s cheeks as he pulled back, instantly averting his eyes and running a hand through his still-damp hair.

“Thanks, Han,” Seungcheol smirked, taking the liberty of shortening the doctor’s name and thoroughly enjoying the sight of his pulse speeding up at the base of his neck.

“N … No problem.”

He wasn’t just pretty. He was more than that. He was smart, he was brave as fuck and more than willing to save the lives of the people who were keeping him locked up down here. Seungcheol had never met anybody like him.

“I’m sorry,” he said, completely out of the blue and surprising even himself.

“For what?” Jeonghan queried, raising a curious eyebrow from the other side of the bed.

“For everything.” Because that was specific enough. “For dragging you into all of this. For making you help us even after the way we’ve treated you. For … For not letting you leave.”

Jeonghan looked away, busying himself with tidying up the work surface and resolutely avoiding eye contact.

“I understand,” he mumbled. “I know things that I shouldn’t know. I’ve seen your faces, I’ve heard your names and your plans … I know that, once this whole Min thing is sorted out, you have to kill me.”

Seungcheol felt like he’d been stabbed all over again.

“We’re not going to kill you,” he babbled, the words tumbling out of his mouth before he’d had the chance to truly process them.

“Really?” Jeonghan smirked. “Isn’t that what they always say? ‘We’re not going to hurt you’? You don’t have to lie to me, Seungcheol. Even if it isn’t you who pulls the trigger, I’m not walking out of this alive.”

How could he be smiling as he said that? He was a civilian. He was supposed to be begging for his life. He was supposed to be pleading to be let go. He wasn’t supposed to be smiling.

“Why aren’t you afraid?” Seungcheol asked him, wondering if his mouth had just taken over his mind. “Seriously, why haven’t I seen you look scared yet?”

Jeonghan still wasn’t looking at him as he shot back his reply, “Because I’m not afraid to die. And it’s not like I had much to live for anyway.”

He wasn’t just pretty. He was fucking beautiful.

Seungcheol had to get out. He had to get as far away from this boy as possible or else he wouldn’t be able to suppress his raging hormones. He was the leader of a notorious gang but that didn’t mean he wasn’t a hot-blooded youth who was just leaving the stages of puberty. 

And Jeonghan was singularly the most attractive person he’d ever laid his eyes on. But this couldn’t work. It wouldn’t work. So why did he want it to so badly?

“You’re not going to die,” he stated, firmly, adamantly, regardless of what his instincts were screaming at him. “We’re not going to let you die.”

Jeonghan’s expression was unreadable. It was both infuriating and intriguing to see a civilian who truly had no fear.

“We need you,” Seungcheol pushed, realising for the first time that he was still shirtless but too worked up to care. “We’re about to go to war here and we’re going to get hurt. We need a doctor and you’ve proved that you’re more than capable. Plus, we owe you. You saved me, you saved Hansol. How can we kill you after that?”

There was a deafening silence and Seungcheol’s mouth was suddenly surprisingly dry. The two of them were standing on opposite sides of the med bay, eyes connected, scrutinising each other for any sign of a reaction.

The tension was crushing.

And then the door opened, and it was broken clean in two as Soonyoung came storming into the room, cursing under his breath as his gaze settled on Hansol.

“We have inbound,” he ground out grimly, throwing a stack of files down on the table.

Shaking himself, Seungcheol turned away from Jeonghan and wrestled his shirt back on before reaching for the files, “Who’s inbound?”

“The Mins.”


	8. Ramen And Revolvers

Seungcheol should have known he’d find Joshua in the training room. Whenever the boy was stressed or struggling with unwanted reminders of his past, his favourite distraction was punching things.

Before the leader had even stepped over the threshold, he could hear the soft thumps of fists on flesh and the accompanying grunts of exertion and he could only hope that whoever Joshua was sparring with would know to protect their groin.

Joshua always went for the groin.

He and Wonwoo were shuffling backwards and forwards in the centre of the room, alternating between attacking and defending as they threw fists and feet in each other’s directions.

Seungcheol took a moment just to watch them, two sweat-slicked shirtless guys trying to beat the shit out of each other without actually beating the shit out of each other.

They were the best warriors. Both of them had once been notorious competitors in separate underground fighting rings, Joshua so he could make enough money to get by after escaping his past and Wonwoo because he'd had no choice.

It was how Seungcheol had found them. He’d already taken Minghao and Junhui under his wing and they were the best martial artists he’d ever seen, but there was something about the way these two fought.

Like their lives depended on it. Like they truly had nothing to lose. Seungcheol had needed that kind of brutality on his side but he never would have expected to end up trusting those guys with his life.

He returned to reality just in time to catch Joshua burying his fist deep into Wonwoo’s abdomen and he could practically feel the wind being knocked out of him just by watching.

“Fuck …” Wonwoo wheezed, staggering backwards and dropping to one knee, arms wrapped around his stomach. “Fuck, Shua!”

“I was holding back,” Joshua dismissed, offering his partner a hand and pulling him to his feet. “If I’d been going full out, you’d be dead.”

Seungcheol took that as his cue to approach, slowly and dramatically clapping his hands together to show his appreciation. Both fighters glanced up and, although Wonwoo raised a couple of fingers in greeting, Joshua turned away.

“You always leave your right flank open,” Seungcheol observed professionally, nodding towards the reddish splodge over Wonwoo’s ribs. “That’s where the liver is. One solid punch and you’ll be too winded to move. Then you’re a goner.”

He could see Wonwoo taking a mental note of the advice and couldn’t help the slightly fond smile from spreading over his face.

Wonwoo had been raised in a group home since birth and, being the small and sharp-tongued individual that he was, he’d been the perfect target for the other residents. Years and years of having to fight for food and even survival had taught him to be quick, agile and strong as hell.

When he was fourteen, he’d run away and the social system had written him off as just another delinquent who had been set up for prison life from the very beginning.

Cold and hungry, he’d tried to sneak into a night club just for some place warm to sleep and had accidentally stumbled upon a drug trade. He should have died right there and then but, somehow, the kid had managed to fight his way out.

One of the dealers had seen the spirit, the desperation and the bravery with which he battled for his life and they’d given him a choice: take a bullet to the brain or put those skills to good use as an underground fighter.

Since the age of fourteen, Wonwoo had been groomed to be the perfect weapon. If he tried to escape, he was beaten. If he refused to step in the ring, he was beaten. If he lost a fight, he was beaten, regardless of the injuries he’d already sustained.

So when the bulky gang leader with the dragon tattoo on his shoulder had offered him an out, he’d practically fallen over himself in his eagerness to agree.

And the rest was history.

“Can I have a moment with Shua?” Seungcheol inquired, clapping Wonwoo on the shoulder when the boy nodded his consent.

Joshua was yet to turn around, resolutely focusing all his attention on pummelling the punching bag that swung from the ceiling. There were individual droplets of sweat rolling down his scarred spine but he didn’t even seem to notice.

“You’re angry,” Seungcheol observed as soon as Wonwoo was out of the room. “And when you’re angry, you get sloppy.”

No response. Just more punching.

“Nobody can deny your ability,” Seungcheol continued, slowly circling around so he could see Joshua’s face. “You’re strong, you’re fearless but you let your emotions get the best of you and that’s what makes you vulnerable.”

He knew he’d hit a nerve when Joshua reeled his arm back and struck the bag with such a force that the cord keeping it attached to the ceiling snapped, sending the entire column of padding and sand crashing to the ground.

For a moment, Joshua just stood there, staring at his fallen enemy and panting heavily.

“I’m not vulnerable,” he snarled at last, raking his sweat-soaked fringe out of his eyes as he finally raised his head.

If looks could kill, Seungcheol would be long dead.

“I know you’re not,” the leader agreed, stooping to grab a water bottle from the floor and tossing it into Joshua’s hand. “But telling you that you are was the only way I could get you to actually talk to me.”

All the tension seemed to just drain from Joshua’s body at those words and his shoulders slumped in pitiful understanding. He clearly hadn’t realised he’d been spiralling again.

“It’s Jeonghan, isn’t it?” Seungcheol pushed, taking advantage of the cracks in his best friend’s mask to delve further into the reasoning behind his behaviour. “He reminds you too much of who you used to be.”

Joshua finished the water bottle in one swig, crushing the empty container into a flattened plastic blob when he was done. And that was all the response Seungcheol required.

“We need him,” he stated resolutely, purposefully leaving no room for argument. “The Mins are coming. We’re about to go to war.”

Joshua’s head snapped up, eyes narrowing in the way they always did when somebody he loved was under threat. It was the action that told Seungcheol he hadn’t fucked up badly enough to destroy his trust.

“When’s the ETA?”

“I’m not sure yet,” Seungcheol said grimly. “I’ve got Jihoon, Soonyoung and Seungkwan with their feelers out but it’s definitely less than a week. So, Shua, I know you’re going through some stuff right now but we need you if we’re going to stand a chance of making it out of this alive.”

He could try getting him to open up and share his feelings but he knew it was useless. If Joshua didn’t want to talk, he would seal his lips and throw away the key forever. The only thing Seungcheol could do now was try and set him back on the right path.

“So I need you to answer me,” he demanded, meeting Joshua’s eye and matching his steely glare. “Are you joining us for this?”

He extended a hand, silently pleading with Joshua to reach out and accept the truce. It took several moments of painful anticipation but, finally, the boy grabbed his leader’s fingers and gave his signature bone-crushing squeeze.

“When haven’t I?” 

The relief must have shown through in Seungcheol’s smile but he couldn’t have cared less. So long as he had Joshua by his side in a fight, the battle was already won.

“Good. Because Seungkwan found a mole.”

\---------------------------

Jeonghan loved pigeons.

It was a fairly strange thing to say in his line of work since they carried so many diseases, but he had always loved pigeons. His father referred to them as ‘rats of the sky’ and had once called an exterminator when he’d found a couple living in the attic of their summer home in Busan.

Jeonghan still remembered the horror show that had been.

They were so stubborn, and he found it entertaining. More than once, he’d driven directly up to a flock that had been feasting on whatever roadkill lay abandoned in the street and had needed to honk his horn just to get them to budge. 

They waddled up and down the pavement, side by side with the daily commuters and just generally disturbed the peace with their strange little bobbing heads and wonky feet. They didn’t even migrate for the winter, solidifying their positions as the year-round nuisance.

At this moment, they were pecking at the ground just a few feet from where Jeonghan sat perched on a mound of snow as if they truly felt at ease even though he was within kicking distance.

It was the first time he’d been outside since everything had begun and the world seemed a billion times more beautiful even with the twisted wire of the fence right in front of his face.

He didn’t even care that his fingers were numb and his nose was red from the cold. He was just thankful not to feel like a captive anymore.

Jihoon was seated on a rock to his right, a headset looped around his neck as he stared at the sparsely forested area behind the fence. 

His entire demeanour, from his expression to his posture, reeked of disapproval and irritation at being wrenched away from his beloved computer to get some fresh air like Wonwoo had suggested.

Forcefully suggested.

Jeonghan redirected his attention to the pigeons in front of him, almost shrieking in fright when a silenced gun went off and one of the birds hit the ground, the others scattering with a beating of frightened wings.

“I hate pigeons,” Jihoon grunted, dropping the small firearm into the snow at his feet.

Jeonghan just sighed, watching the snow around the creature’s corpse slowly turning scarlet. Maybe he was being paranoid, but suddenly he had a terrible sense of foreboding.

“You hungry?”

Jihoon didn’t even wait for an answer before he straightened up and started trudging back towards the door behind them.

Honestly speaking, Jeonghan would have preferred to stay outside a little longer but disobeying Jihoon wasn’t something he wanted to try any time soon.

Cracking his joints, he took one last look at the dead bird and then followed the miniature gremlin back inside. 

The med bay had become an impromptu meeting hall of sorts since the arrival of Soonyoung, and Seokmin was monitoring Hansol since Jeonghan himself couldn’t be within earshot of the sensitive information currently being shared.

Therefore, it was the opposite direction the two of them headed in when they returned to the gloomy lighting of the bunker’s labyrinthine corridors, following the twists and turns until they reached what must have been the kitchen area with its stainless-steel counters and white-tiled floor. 

Mingyu and Minghao were already in there and Jeonghan braced himself for the inevitable onslaught of bickering he would have to put up with.

“You have to boil the water first or else the ramen gets soggy.”

“It’s supposed to be soggy. It’s ramen.”

“That’s not the point.”

“Then what is the point? We need the ramen to be boiled so who cares if it’s in the water before or after?” 

“Are you fucking kidding me? You’re fucking kidding me, right?” Minghao spluttered, turning to Jeonghan and gesturing wildly with a bundle of dried ramen noodles in his hand. “He’s kidding, right?”

Jeonghan shrugged and Mingyu rolled his eyes with a sigh of exasperation as he continued to boil the water.

Jeonghan couldn’t remember a time when he hadn’t seen those two not fighting.

“Get me a fucking snack and then shut the fuck up, Minghao,” Jihoon snapped, making himself comfortable on a stool at the island and waiting impatiently for his servant to chop up the fruit.

To Jeonghan’s surprise, Minghao didn’t scoff or complain or even question the rudeness of the request, instantly carrying out his task in silence. It could be respect but it had a higher chance of being fear. The guy had just murdered a bird after all.

Minghao still didn’t say a word as he set the plate down in front of Jihoon and immediately slinked out of the kitchen. Mingyu was also uncharacteristically quiet, the discomfort evident in the protective hunch of his shoulders as he bowed over the stove.

“Is everything okay?” Jeonghan asked tentatively, addressing nobody in particular but not surprised when Jihoon was the one to answer.

“They tend to quiet down when I’m around,” he offered up, but they weren’t just quiet. They looked afraid. “I’m a bit of a loose cannon.”

He winked at Jeonghan before sliding off his stool and leaving the room, taking the plate of fruit with him.

Mingyu visibly relaxed.

“What was that?” Jeonghan questioned at once.

“It’s easier to just stay out of his way. He’s only like that when he’s upset about something.”

“Oh.” 

Without saying another word on the matter, Mingyu set a steaming bowl of ramen on the counter in front of Jeonghan along with a plate of meat and an egg.

“Eat up,” he encouraged with a smile. “I heard Seungkwan is on his way. You’ll need your energy.”

Jeonghan remembered the moment he’d first met Mingyu with his hulking body and smoking gun, and he decided he’d most definitely been onto something when he’d thought that a smile would change his entire appearance. Because, God damn, he was attractive. 

Minghao slipped back into the kitchen with a poorly-suppressed shudder and a mumbled mutter of something in Mandarin that caused Mingyu’s eyebrow to arch. Jeonghan didn’t quite know if he understood him or not but the two of them continued as if he did.

They were just finishing their meal when Junhui flounced in with a crow of delight.

“Ah! I thought you’d be in here! Can you come with me? We need you to look at something.”

“Oh … okay.”

Jeonghan let himself be led back to the med bay where the same people seemed to be present but with the addition of a round-faced, blue-haired boy and two guys dressed in black with aprons tied around their waists.

“This is Seungkwan,” Junhui said, gesturing towards the boy with the navy fringe. “And that’s Chen and Jisung. They work in the kitchens at the club Seungkwan runs.”

The three men all inclined their heads in Jeonghan’s direction and he felt compelled to do the same, mind racing at the thought of why he would be needed for this particular conversation.

“This is Jeonghan,” Junhui continued, flipping his wrist in the newcomer’s direction by way of introduction. “He’s the doctor.”

“It’s nice to finally meet you, Jeonghan,” Seungkwan greeted, indicating the man to his left. “This one got knifed. Could you take a look?”

“Uh … sure.”

Shooting a sideways glance at Seungcheol for a reason he couldn’t identify, Jeonghan directed Jisung to the empty bed and told him to remove his shirt so he could get a clear view of the injury.

He wasn’t sure what he’d been expecting but the wound in the man’s upper arm was barely anything a doctor would need to take care of. It could hardly be considered a cut at all.

Turning around to face Seungkwan, he was about to convey his opinion but he didn’t even get the chance to open his mouth before a deafening _bang_ reverberated around the room and he instinctively dropped to the ground with his arms over his head.

His ears were ringing, destructive wind chimes echoing up and down his auditory nerves, and he could vaguely hear someone calling his name but he wasn’t sure. A pair of hands fastened around his elbows and pulled him off the floor just as the sound cut back in.

Only then did he feel safe enough to open his eyes and the first thing that he saw was Seungcheol’s smiling face just a few inches from his, the two of them kneeling in front of each other in the space between the beds.

“It’s okay, Han,” he said, chuckling slightly. “You’re fine. Seungkwan was just having a little fun.”

Jeonghan’s knees were trembling and his head was still throbbing but, with Seungcheol’s support, he managed to clamber to his feet and get a good view of both Chen and Jisung lying lifeless and bloody on the ground.

“W-what?”

“Those two were looking for you,” Seungkwan explained carelessly, re-holstering his gun in the underside of his suit jacket. “They’ve been feeding the Mins info for days. I thought it was only fair that they got to meet you before I got rid of them.”

Jeonghan couldn’t find the words. Two people had just been murdered right in front of them and nobody seemed to have batted an eyelid.

Seokmin was rebandaging Hansol’s thigh, Seungcheol was still grinning, Joshua and Soonyoung were sniggering about something in the corner of the room and nobody had so much as poked their head around the door to see what all the commotion was about.

And the words were tumbling from his tingling lips before he could stop them, “Jesus, Seungkwan, why couldn’t you use a damn silencer?”

Everybody turned to stare at him with varying expressions of shock on their faces and Jeonghan was just starting to wonder if he had crossed some kind of line before Seungcheol burst out laughing, doubling over and clutching at his wounded side.

Joshua let out a giggle and, a moment later, everybody had joined in. Even Hansol had the ghost of a smirk on his lips behind the oxygen mask. 

“You may get out of this after all,” Seungkwan smirked, tugging at the end of Jeonghan’s hair and chuckling when the doctor tried to wriggle free.

He didn’t want to jump to conclusions but he was on the verge of convincing himself that these people may be starting to like him.

“Oh, I forgot to mention something, Cheol,” Seungkwan interjected, suddenly back to business as he turned towards the leader. “Two of my bouncers and one of my dancers were found dead this morning. I already had Shownu check the bodies and he said it’s not the Mins and it’s not Sungjong either.”

“The Mins lost a few of their men that were stationed here, too. That’s why the head of the branch is inbound,” Soonyoung added from the side lines. 

Jeonghan remained silent, questioning whether he was allowed to be in here when they were discussing such matters. He glanced over at Junhui, hoping for some kind of indication as to what he should be doing, but the boy seemed too lost in thought to notice.

“Okay, so we have a separate problem it seems,” Joshua concluded. 

“Yeah, but that’s not important right now. If the Mins are coming, we’re going to have to prepare and that means figuring out how to prove that Sungjong killed Junki.”

There was a smattering of nods and hums of acknowledgement before Jeonghan found himself once again part of the conversation.

“Han, we’re going to have a lot more casualties and injuries coming in so make a list of equipment that you’re going to need and Soonyoung will get Kihyun to source it,” Seungcheol commanded.

“Okay,” Jeonghan said, because that’s all he could say.

Somehow, he’d become the doctor for a gang. A gang of actual criminals. The two dead bodies still sprawled on the floor at his feet were just testament to that.

Seungcheol knocked a stack of scattered papers together, slotted it into a file and held it out towards Junhui.

“Jun, get this to Jihoon. Tell Minghao and Chan to pick a team and head out for recon and while you’re there, get Charles’ shipment order on a flashdrive and give that to Jihoon as well.”

“You got it boss,” Jun sang – he seemed to always be singing – as he left the room.

Seungcheol looked stressed as hell and yet somehow more alive than Jeonghan had ever seen him before. His eyes were lit from within and all the sickliness that the injury had brought to his face was long gone.

This was what he was good at. This was what he loved. Joshua had said that he was born into this and now Jeonghan could see it, clear as day. This life was all Seungcheol had ever known.

Everything suddenly seemed to have a sense of urgency and Jeonghan felt the need to busy himself with his assigned task so wouldn’t look like an idiot. He padded over to the table where the notepad rested, leaving bloodied footprints in his wake that did not go unnoticed by Seungcheol.

“I’m going to have Wonwoo set you up in one of the rooms upstairs,” he said as he approached the door, shepherding Junhui and Joshua out ahead of him. “And for God’s sake, Seungkwan, get someone to clean that shit up!”

\----------------------

“Okay, so there are two types of handgun. Revolver and semi-auto. There is a difference. Learn it. Also, never do that thing in the movies where they fire a gun in the air. It’s stupid, it doesn’t look nearly as cool as it should and what goes up must come down.”

Jeonghan nodded hurriedly, swallowing the globule of phlegm lodged in his throat as he stared at the firearm Junhui was holding in both hands, flipping the cartridge in and out of the frame.

“So your dominant hand is the one you use to grip it but since this is your first time handling a gun, you should use your other one to support the weight. It’ll also help absorb the kickback. You try.”

He held it out, eyebrows raised expectantly and Jeonghan had to take a deep breath before he took the weapon.

His palms were sweating, leaving clammy prints all over the smooth shiny surface, and he was shaking even as he fastened both hands around the object and lifted it up to point at the target at the end of the shooting range.

He’d always hated guns. He’d seen what they could do to people. He’d seen children bleeding out from a bullet to the gut and teenagers with glassy eyes and perfectly circular holes in the foreheads.

“That’s good,” Junhui complimented, stepping up behind him and reaching over his shoulders to help him steady himself. “Make sure your fingers are clear of the slide. If you get bitten, it hurts like a fucking bitch.”

Jeonghan’s trembling increased in severity as he readjusted his grip on the gun.

“Feet shoulder width apart,” Junhui murmured, gently nudging the inside of Jeonghan’s shoe with his toe. “Step forward with the leg opposite your dominant hand. Lean forward slightly, make sure you’re balanced, bend your knees a little if you have to.”

He understood why Seungcheol had told him to do this. There were people out to kill him and so he had to learn to defend himself, but that didn’t mean he liked it.

“Take a deep breath and hold it.”

He was already doing that.

“Calm your body. Don’t anticipate the recoil. Once you fire, don’t suddenly release or relax. Stay still and take a breath. Now, when you’re ready, squeeze the trigger slowly in a smooth, controlled motion.”

There were so many instructions to remember and Jeonghan felt like his head was about to explode but then everything went silent. Completely, ominously, epically dead silent.

Still holding his breath, he flexed his index finger and the force of the kickback ricocheted up his arms, jarring his elbows and locking his shoulders in place as the entire weapon jerked in his hands.

Just as Junhui had told him, he maintained his position until his heart rate had reached a no-longer lethal rhythm and only then did he allow his posture to slump as the adrenaline left his body.

“Holy shit …” came Junhui’s soft murmur in his ear. “You’ve never shot a gun before?”

“No,” Jeonghan breathed out, setting the gun down and shaking the tension out of his arms. “Never.”

“Then you’re a natural.”

Baffled, Jeonghan followed Junhui’s line of sight and squinted at the human-shaped target at the end of the range. It took him several moments to find the bullet hole and when he did, his jaw dropped.

“Right in the throat!” Junhui cackled, slapping him on the back with a whoop of disbelieving delight. “Remind me never to get on your bad side!”

It must have been a lucky shot. Jeonghan couldn’t be so naturally skilled at something his job had always told him was wrong. That was it. It was beginner’s luck. There was no way he could do it again.

But then he did.

“Okay, what was the point in me coming down here?” Junhui cried, throwing up his arms in mock defeat. “You clearly don’t need me to teach you a single thing!”

“I didn’t know I’d be this good,” Jeonghan mumbled, more to himself than anything else as he gawped at the would-be-very-dead-if-he-were-real target he’d just shot directly between the eyes. “Seriously. I hate guns.”

“Maybe it’s something to do with being a doctor. You know how to be accurate and steady your hands when it really matters.”

Jeonghan glanced up at him, noting the way he was shaking his head and grinning from ear to ear, clearly blown away by his student’s talent. He was so childlike. He was so happy. How could somebody like him ever end up in a place like this?

“You don’t strike me as the murdering type,” Jeonghan spoke before he could stop himself and Junhui glanced up, expression suddenly sharp. “You seem like you should be working with children or in a nursing home or something equally kind and caring.”

For the first time since he’d met him, Junhui wasn’t smiling anymore.

“You think any of us are here because we want to murder people?” he asked and even though his words were accusatory, his tone was still gentle. “You think that’s all we do?”

“I know it’s not,” Jeonghan responded at once. “But this is confusing, okay? You do kill people, Jun. I’ve seen it. But then you’re sweet and you’re nice and you’re funny and I don’t understand how you could get dragged into this.”

Junhui wasn’t looking at him anymore. Instead, he seemed to have decided that focusing his attention on loading the gun in his hand was a better use of his time than looking at the person who was questioning his life choices.

“Every single one of us has a different reason,” he explained solemnly. “But all those reasons have one thing in common.”

Jeonghan nodded, silently encouraging him to continue.

“Society fucked us over,” Junhui spat. “For most of us, it was this life or no life at all. Cheol found us, he saved us and we’re indebted to him forever because of it, but that doesn't mean we can’t leave. Any one of us could walk out that door whenever we wanted to.”

“So why don’t you?”

“Because we don’t have anything to go back to.”

And that stung. More profoundly than Jeonghan ever thought it could.

“None of us have families. None of us have any ties to the outside world. This team, these people around us, are all we have. That’s what makes us strong. That’s what makes us dangerous.”

As if to prove his point, he raised the gun in his hand and emptied the clip into the target’s skull, showcasing his phenomenal aim and accuracy.

Jeonghan could see his point and, what was worse, he understood it. Nobody could ever enter this life while still keeping in touch with the existence they’d led beforehand. It just wouldn’t work.

Jeonghan still had a life. Jeonghan had friends. A job. A family. For the first time, he wondered if anybody was looking for him. Somebody other than the thugs who wanted him dead.

“So, what’s your story?” he directed at Junhui. “You must have one even if you left it behind to come here.”

The effect was instantaneous.

Any hint of that playfulness was gone from Junhui’s eyes. His jaw locked, his knuckles turned white and his teeth were quite audibly grinding behind his colourless lips. Whatever had happened to him was clearly too awful for words and Jeonghan was about to retract his question.

But then:

“I spent my entire childhood in a science lab. They tormented me, tortured me, strapped me to a table and monitored my brain activity as they cut me open. For years, I was nothing more than an experiment. A test subject for their sick studies. I was twelve when I escaped. Took down thirty guards to do it, too. To this day, I still don’t know what program they were running in that place but, sometimes, at night … I still hear the screams …”

Jeonghan could barely find his voice to whisper a ghostly weak, “Fuck, really?”

Junhui turned to him, jaw still squared and eyes still hard, and then he erupted into a fit of breathless cackles, sinking to his knees on the shooting range floor and then falling flat on his back.

“Oh my God! You should see your face!” he wheezed, wiping tears from the corners of his eyes as Jeonghan just stood there, gaping. “Did you actually believe that shit? Seriously?”

“You’re an idiot,” the most gullible person to ever live scowled, turning away from the writhing lunatic on the floor. “I guess everything must be a joke to you.”

“I still hear the screams …” Junhui gasped, mimicking his own voice and then spiralling down the rabbit hole of laughter once more. “Oh my God, Jeonghan, you’re going to be so much fun to mess with.” 

And, in spite of everything, Jeonghan found himself chuckling.

“Asshole,” he hissed even as he reached down to help Junhui to his feet. “Fucking asshole.”

“No, seriously,” Junhui grinned, still pawing at the tears on his face. “My story isn’t anywhere near as fucked up as some of these guys’. It’s actually kind of boring if you ask me. Cliché, too.”

“Humour me.”

“Gambling drunk for a dad. Junkie for a mum. Used to break my fingers and dunk me in scalding water so they could claim the insurance money. You know, your average social services case.”

Jeonghan did know. He’d seen similar kids with similar injuries being paraded into the emergency room by a parent who stank of smoke or alcohol or both and demanded an injury claim.

He couldn’t count how many times he’d had to take himself off a case because he wasn’t sure he would have been able to hold back his fists. He’d never understood how anybody could be so cruel to a child.

“See?” Junhui smirked, snapping Jeonghan out of his internal monologue. “Not nearly as exciting as you’d think.”

Jeonghan opened his mouth to rebuke but he was once again beaten to it.

“Come on,” his friend – could he call him a friend? He wanted to – chortled, beckoning him back over to the table of firearms. “Let’s see if you can shoot him in the dick.” 


	9. Copycat's Calling Card

Jeonghan truly didn't believe he would still be alive at this point. Ten days ago, he was tied up in a trunk and now … Now he was part of a criminal organisation. 

The med bay had more or less been closed off from the rest of the bunker and Hansol was moved to his own room to make way for the steady stream of injured men and women being carried through those doors. 

Needless to say, Jeonghan had his hands full. 

Whoever stood at the head of this Min group definitely had an artistic way of dealing with his enemies. The ones who survived would be scarred or physically disabled for the rest of their lives and the ones who didn't died in indescribable agony. 

It left Jeonghan wondering what would happen to him if he ever got caught. 

He spent half his free time learning to shoot and disassemble guns. Minghao had tried to put a sword in his hand but barely a second passed before he took it back with a resolute shake of his head. 

That boy was a particular nut that Jeonghan was yet to crack but, according to Junhui, most people struggled to understand the reasoning behind his peculiar quirks. 

The rest of his time was spent getting the holy hell beaten out of him by Wonwoo and Mingyu because, despite being a natural with a gun, he couldn't fight hand to hand to save his life. 

And that was a problem since his life was what it would ultimately come down to. 

Instead of wasting their efforts, his mentors settled for teaching him the basic defense techniques such as how to disarm an opponent and escape from a choke hold. 

At one point, Chan had tried to sneak him up onto the roof, claiming that he wanted to show him how to snipe birds, but Seungcheol had found out pretty quickly and put an end to that operation. 

Jeonghan had fallen into an easy pattern with these people and it almost felt like he was a part of something. He adored the sensation of adrenaline coursing through him. The bodies no longer made him wince and the screaming didn't even rouse a shiver. 

He was even handling the pressure that came with the endless onslaught of patients. 

It was just past two in the morning when he checked the time, immediately returning to his fascinating adventures of staring at the ceiling. 

A small man with a mousey face who'd introduced himself as Kihyun had stopped by with all the requested equipment for the med bay along with a suitcase filled with clothes and shoes for Jeonghan to keep. 

It was getting harder and harder to deny that he wasn't ever going back home. But then again, there wasn't exactly a home to go back to. 

He had already changed into one of his provided outfits and there was nothing left to do but sit and wait for Junhui to come and collect him in the morning. 

His room was on the third floor. No windows, concrete walls, a single bed and a chest of drawers on one side and a small bathroom on the other. It wasn't particularly homely but it was comfortable. 

A soft knock at the door had him craning his neck to see Seungcheol cautiously letting himself in, dressed in the black hoodie Jeonghan had borrowed on his very first day here. 

It left a strange sensation sitting in his chest to know that they had worn the same item of clothing. 

Seungcheol's lips quirked at the sight of his awareness and raised a hand to beckon him out, "Get your boots on, Han." 

Immediately on command, Jeonghan swung his legs over the edge of the bed and started feeling around for his shoes. 

"Where's Jun?" 

"He had a late night with Minghao," Seungcheol offered vaguely. "The stress is getting to everyone. We're sitting ducks and the attacks are getting more brutal. It won't be long before the Mins find the information they're looking for."

Jeonghan nodded his understanding as he finished fastening the leather straps over the top of his boot and stood up to follow. 

It had snowed heavily during the evening, fine white powder engulfing their feet up to the ankle as soon as they stepped off the small concrete porch at the bunker's back exit. 

The moon was shrouded by wisps of clouds, providing nothing more than a pale ghostly glow to illuminate their surroundings. 

"So how's the training going?" Seungcheol asked, opening the fuse box on the side of the building and flipping a switch that ignited a lamp just above the door. 

"Uh, it's good," Jeonghan responded, watching the leader's movements carefully. "I can shoot really well but I still can't fight."

Seungcheol chuckled, "We all have our weaknesses."

"I'm sure I'd be able to improve if Wonwoo wasn't so small," Jeonghan complained pathetically. "I need a bigger target."

Seungcheol cocked an eyebrow at that, "And Mingyu?"

"Not that big."

That elicited the first proper laugh and Jeonghan's stomach gave a giddy flip at the sound. 

He didn't get to see Seungcheol as often as some of the others but, when he did, he couldn't bring himself to look away. 

The man's presence demanded attention and there didn't seem to be a force on Earth that could make those concrete foundations of his tremble.

"What about me then?" 

"You?" Jeonghan squeaked incredulously. 

"We're about the same height and I'm bigger than Wonwoo. So come on. Take a swing."

Yeah. Yoon Jeonghan was going to try and punch the head of the mafia. Because that would go so spectacularly well. 

"Uh … Cheol, I don't think I …" 

"Come on, Han. Don't be a chicken."

He was grinning again, taking Jeonghan's hands in his own and pulling him into the centre of the small outdoor area between the fence and the bunker wall. 

"Go ahead," he teased. "Show me what you've learned."

Huffing out an exasperated chuckle, Jeonghan steeled himself and started repeating the techniques Wonwoo had tried to drill into his muscle memory. 

Spreading his feet to shoulder width, he relaxed his knees, brought his fists up and allowed himself to bounce gracefully on the balls of his feet, slowly circling Seungcheol and ignoring the smug look of amusement on the man's face.

He waited until he was an arm's length away before swinging at his target's head. 

Said target ducked far too easily. 

He tried again but was thwarted by a simple side step. 

"What are you trying to hit?" Seungcheol mocked. 

"Your head."

"What, like that?" 

Jeonghan had time to spot the small shift in his opponent's weight but not enough to react before he was flat on his back with Seungcheol straddling his hips and the snow melting against his back. 

All the air was knocked from his lungs and, without warning, his mind was being propelled backwards. 

_Who are you?_

No. No, no, no, no. Not now. Not in front of Seungcheol. 

_Who sent you to spy on us?_

Why now? Of all the possible moments, why choose to torture him now? He'd been fine. He was sure he'd been fine. 

"Please," he whispered, screwing his eyes shut as he felt the weight shifting on top of him. 

_Tell me!_

His roaring voice. The hot steel against his forehead. The stink of cigarette smoke with every breath puffed into his face. 

"Han?" 

"Please … please …" Jeonghan continued to beg. “I didn’t see …”

“Hannie, no, look at me.”

“Please … I won’t tell … Please, let me go …”

“Han, baby.”

Jeonghan could only whimper helplessly. He knew what his mind was showing him wasn’t real. He could hear Seungcheol’s voice as he climbed off him, could feel the muscles in the chest he was held against. 

But it was so _real._

“I got you,” came the whisper in his ear before his body was leaving the ground.

Light and shadows alike were racing past him almost as fast as the memories were flitting across his vision. 

Seungcheol’s footsteps were surprisingly light for somebody so bulky moving so fast and, in what seemed like no time at all, the familiar scent of lavender candles was wafting up Jeonghan’s nose.

“I’m right here, Han. Please … I’m here.” 

His mind was still reeling even as his back met the mattress. He was still trapped, spiralling through the most vivid nightmare he’d ever experienced, as the wind nipped at his skin and his ankle throbbed and his knees ached and the leather straps of the belt dug into his wrists and the pitch oil from the trunk tried to choke him from the inside out.

“It’s not real. I swear to you. It’s not real. I’m with you. I’m keeping you safe.”

He knew that. He knew. And yet …

The muscles in his jaw were tingling. He couldn’t feel his fingers. The pinching in his chest was unbearable and, any minute now, he was about to pass out and he could still smell that cigarette butt breath.

And then there were warm hands on his face, cupping his cheeks with a gentleness a murderer couldn’t possess and sliding down to stroke the skin at the nape of his neck, and a mouth on his.

Just like that, the panic drained from his every pore and his body deflated into Seungcheol’s touch, sagging into the steel bands of his arms as his eyes finally felt safe enough to flutter open.

“I’m sorry …” Seungcheol whispered, still with his hands on Jeonghan’s face. “I didn’t know how else to distract you.”

He looked flustered, worried, a little embarrassed, but definitely not sorry, and all Jeonghan could do was blink dazedly up at him as he tried to take in his surroundings. 

He’d assumed they were in his room but only now did he realise he’d been wrong.

“This is my room. I didn’t think you’d want anyone to see you like that so I brought you here. It’s the closest to the back door.”

Jeonghan finally released the shuddering breath he hadn’t known he’d been holding and furiously blinked the tears away from his vision.

“Hannie …”

When had Seungcheol started calling him that?

“What happened?” 

“I … I don’t know …” Jeonghan lied, shuffling onto his elbows and allowing himself to be levered into a sitting position. “I … I thought I was fine. That hasn’t … I’ve … I’ve never …”

“But you have,” Seungcheol insisted, his brows knitting in the centre of his forehead. “Joshua told me. How often does this happen?” 

“It was just the one time …”

“The one time that he’s seen.” He looked truly worried. “Jeonghan … this organisation is made from some of the most fucked-up kids around. Don’t tell him I told you this but Minghao can’t hide his breakdowns and he’s had years of practise. What makes you think you can do what he can’t?”

“I just … I … I don’t want to feel …”

“Weak?”

Jeonghan nodded.

“Baby, are you the furthest thing from weak. Joshua practically had a gun to your head and you still saved my life. Does that sound like somebody who’s weak to you?”

Jeonghan’s brain hurt too much to try and understand what was being said. He was tired, he was scared and, more than anything, he was confused as to why Seungcheol was touching him so carefully and talking to him so gently and calling him ‘baby’ of all things.

“Do you want to talk to someone?” his saviour asked. “It doesn’t have to be me. Some of the other guys can help if …”

“I … uh … I’m-I’m fine,” Jeonghan interrupted but even he had to admit that the tremor in his voice was unconvincing. “I just … I need to start my rounds soon.”

He could deduce from Seungcheol’s faint smile of understanding resignation that he’d had to deal with this kind of deflection countless times before.

Right now, they were all running on fumes. An impending breakdown was inevitable. All they could do was hope that it wouldn’t hit when they needed it least.

Shownu, the worker from the chop shop, was waiting in the med bay when Jeonghan finally dragged his unsteady feet down there, still occasionally needing to use the wall for support and unable to think about anything other than the feeling of Seungcheol’s lips on his.

When Soonyoung had first mentioned the ‘chop shop’, he had assumed that it was a place for written-off cars or, at the very least, some kind of butcher’s so it had been a great surprise when he’d come to know that Shownu and Kihyun actually ran a flower store.

“Hey,” the visitor greeted with a grin, his chest practically bursting out of the bright pink overalls that were trying to contain it.

“Hey,” Jeonghan shot back with as much welcoming conviction as he could muster in his current state.

“I’m just here to collect a body.”

Because, of course, the front of the ‘chop shop’ was adorned with bouquets and blossoms and the back was a sort of twisted mortuary where gang members waited to be buried in an unmarked grave at the top of some remote hill. 

“Oh … Okay. This way.”

Shownu’s services couldn’t be more gratefully received. He showed up every three days without fail to retrieve the corpses of the people Jeonghan had failed to save, whisking them away so they didn’t get a chance to stink up the place with their rotting fleshy smell.

The two of them ventured behind the curtain that had been drawn around the body and Shownu instantly let out a long, low whistle, circling the bed with his arms folded over his gigantic chest and his brow furrowed in confusion.

Jeonghan thought he understood why. The victim had fallen prey to the exact same calling card the Mins had left on almost every other target: a shot to each knee, a double tap to the chest and one to the centre of the forehead, but this was a little different.

Junhui had explained how an enemy of the Mins died. The knees were blasted with a pistol, causing indescribable agony and instantly immobilising the victim. Then would come the blows to the chest and then, finally, the kill shot. Just to be sure the job was finished.

But instead of the usual trademark, this guy’s knee caps had been blown right off. The wounds in his chest were shallow, the bullets lodged deep in the bones of the ribcage instead of passing clean through as was standard of the Mins, and the head trauma wasn’t a single clean hole right between the eyes but a gaping chasm at the back of the skull.

It was almost definitely not Min work.

“A fucking copycat,” Shownu concluded, and Jeonghan arched an eyebrow.

“What does that mean?”

“It means this other guy – whoever he is – knows what’s going on and he’s trying to escalate it. As if you guys didn’t already have enough on your hands.” 

Jeonghan couldn’t say with total honesty that he comprehended everything that was occurring around him but even he could tell that this was a weight Seungcheol did not need to be laid on his shoulders.

“We should tell somebody …” he muttered. “Cheol or … Shua.”

Shownu only hummed to show he was listening, a strange smile still settled on his face. He and Kihyun never seemed to stop smiling, no matter what the situation, as though they were perpetually amped up on happy juice.

“I’ll go find someone,” Jeonghan continued when it seemed as if he wasn’t going to get a response.

He left Shownu examining the corpse and slipped back out into the darkened hallway. 

It was still ridiculously early in the morning, maybe round about four, and Seungcheol had said that everybody was stressed out of their minds which probably explained why there were so few people up and out. 

The kitchen was empty, as was the common room and the training room. There were only two places Jeonghan knew, for sure, would contain somebody who was awake: Seungcheol’s room and Jihoon’s. The latter’s was nearest.

He was almost there when all the lights suddenly turned a blood red colour and alarms started blaring from the speakers on the walls. 

“Proximity breach!” he heard somebody yelling before the previously-empty common room was swarmed with people.

They seemed to come out of the walls themselves, all shouting various pieces of information and stuffing bullets into their guns. 

Joshua saw the outcast first and was by his side in an instant, handing him a glock and shoving him backwards, “Hold this. Stay low.”

Somebody else grabbed his arm and he whipped around to see Chan yanking him towards Jihoon’s recon room.

Everything was chaos on top of chaos on top of chaos but as soon as they entered the tech lab, it was as if the Earth had a dampener on it. 

The alarms were completely silenced, a gentle beeping from one of the computers existing as the only indication that something was wrong with the outside world.

“Get down,” Chan ordered grimly, pushing his charge towards the back of the room. “Don’t shoot unless you absolutely have to.”

Jeonghan shrivelled into the corner, clutching the gun with both hands and praying that he wouldn’t have to use it. Firing at a cardboard target on a wall and firing at a real person were two very different things.

“The border guards are unconscious,” Jihoon called from where he was seated behind his screen, pulling up surveillance cameras from various angles as Chan stood over him, gun trained on the door in case they gained any unwanted visitors.

“What do they want? No one ever attacks the base.”

It was because of him, Jeonghan realised. They were coming for him and people could die trying to stop them. People could die trying to protect him.

“It’s not an attack,” Jihoon called out, and the relief was evident in every face as Chan finally lowered his gun. “At least, they’re not trying to infiltrate. Probably some kind of recon mission gone wrong but I’m willing to bet it’s still for Jeonghan.”

Were these people really willing to risk their lives to take his?

Jihoon enlarged another screen that showed Minghao, Jun, Mingyu and Wonwoo carefully pacing towards the two unconscious border guards, weapons drawn and heads turning in every direction for any sign of a threat.

As they watched, a faceless figure scrambled up from beneath a bush and made a desperate dash for freedom only to be cut down in an instant by Junhui’s expert marksmanship. 

Jeonghan had to resist the urge to cheer triumphantly.

Jihoon changed the angle yet again and revealed the second intruder lying in the snow, concealed from view by the surrounding trees and the thickness of the undergrowth. 

As his pursuers checked on the unresponsive guards, he started to slowly shuffle backwards. Just a few feet and he would be out of sight for good.

“They’re going to miss him,” Jeonghan observed anxiously, turning to Chan and noting with surprise the gleeful grin the kid was bearing.

“Nope.” 

Seungcheol came from nowhere, kicking the gun from the trespasser’s hand and driving his knee into the man’s face, knocking him out cold in a heartbeat without even breaking a sweat. 

He truly was a master fighter.

“Who do you think they are?” Chan questioned softly. “Mins? Sungjong?”

“The copycat,” Jeonghan added under his breath, hurrying to elaborate when the other two glanced up at him. “Oh, I forgot. Shownu wanted to talk to someone. He thinks there’s a person copying the Mins’ calling card.” 

Jihoon let out a string of curse words and clicked a few buttons to engage the headset over his ears.

“It’s being handled, Channie,” he fired over his shoulder. “You should probably go and set up downstairs. Mingyu’s going to need the tools.”

Apparently even this heartless gremlin boy referred to Chan by his affectionate nickname.

“Fuck …” the kid grunted, sliding his gun back into his belt. “Okay, yeah.” 

“And Jeonghan?” Jihoon continued. “You should go to your room. I don't think you're going to want to hear what's about to go down."

Jeonghan didn’t know what he didn’t want to hear but he knew for sure that he didn’t want to hear it. So he marched straight to his room, slammed the door, threw himself on the bed and clamped a pillow over his ears.

It did nothing to block out the screams.


	10. Decent Human Being

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TRIGGER WARNING!!!!  
> This chapter contains potentially triggering content such as really quite graphic depictions of torture. If you know this will upset you then please do not read.

Joshua had no problem with killing. Death didn’t phase him, whether it be others’ or his own, and he’d never properly understood why the mere thought of it scared people so much. 

When he was younger, sure, he’d felt the same until he realised that there was nothing to lose in death.

With death came freedom. No more pain, no more hardships. Nobody could threaten your safety or your sanity when you were no longer alive. 

No, it was the lead-up to the death that truly made him sick to his stomach. The pain, the wailing, the feeling of life seeping from your body, the moment when your lungs deflated with their final breath and your heart just … stopped.

That was the part that Joshua didn’t like to think about, and here was Mingyu somehow finding some sick sense of pleasure in it.

Joshua knew why. He understood that, once in a while, Mingyu needed to inflict the pain on others that he had endured himself. Needed to make people feel what he had gone through all those years.

The scars on Joshua’s back didn’t even come close to the ones on Mingyu’s.

But perhaps the most unsettling about all of this was that Junhui was sitting right next to him, his arms folded over his chest and his legs crossed with a kind of lazy smirk of satisfaction on his face.

Junhui had always made Joshua more than a little uncomfortable. Seungcheol had never hunted him, hadn’t set out to find him, hadn’t just happened upon him by accident as he’d done for the rest of the team. 

Junhui was just there one day. In the bunker. Somehow.

Seungcheol had tried to put a bullet through him but he’d missed. Twice. And Seungcheol never missed.

It sounded like a bad line from a cliché 20th century movie: the big bag mafia boss that was so big and bad that he never fumbled a shot but, honestly, Seungcheol _never_ missed.

And Junhui didn’t have an actual backstory. Or, at least, not one that they’d heard yet. 

The tales he told seemed to change every time he recounted his so-called experiences. Maybe he enjoyed getting a rise out of people whenever he thought up a particularly gruesome one. 

There wasn’t a single scar on him, not even acne spots. His teeth were far too straight to have not been confined to a set of braces at some point in his youth and, from what they'd seen of his body since he refused to fight shirtless, he was well-built, fit and healthy. 

He always knew what his next move was and nothing ever surprised him.

He was an asset to the organisation, one of Joshua’s very best friends and loyal to the death but that didn’t put a stop to the uneasy feeling he had a habit of inducing in people.

And, as if that wasn’t concerning enough, he seemed to enjoy torturing their captives just as much as he enjoyed singing random sentences and, while Joshua could understand why Mingyu wanted to or needed to, he had no idea about Junhui. 

And that … that scared him.

The man Seungcheol had captured was from Sungjong’s gang, but that was pretty much all they’d gotten out of him.

By now, he had virtually no teeth left in his mouth, the only fingers left unbroken were the index and thumb on his right hand, a clean strip of skin was missing from his knee to his ankle and there was a metal collar wired up to a battery clamped around his neck.

And he still hadn’t spilled.

“Oh, he’s good,” Junhui giggled.

He’d taken his own turn before Mingyu. Most of the broken fingers had been his work. But now the two of them were standing in front of their victim with their arms folded and their eyes wide in disbelief.

“I thought this would be easier,” Mingyu sighed. “All of this has worked on me before.”

Joshua winced at the brutal reminder of why Mingyu was so good at this.

“Well, let’s let him sleep on it,” Junhui shrugged, speaking deliberately loudly and clearly. “Maybe he’ll feel more inclined to speak tomorrow … after we call his family.”

The man’s eyes cracked into bloodshot slits and he released a helpless whimper, blood and drool flowering over his chin and running down his neck in individual rivulets, unharmed fingers twitching against the ropes keeping his wrists fastened to the arms of the chair.

“Oh, that’s it, isn’t it?” Junhui grinned triumphantly, striding towards the poor bastard and crouching down so they were on the same eye level. “You have a family? A girlfriend perhaps? You know Woozi could find her in less than a second, don’t you?”

Joshua suppressed the urge to shiver.

“What if we paid her a visit?” Junhui continued, raising his hand and pedalling his fingers as if they were a pair of feet making their way up the victim’s leg. “Just popped in to say ‘hi’? What do you say?”

Their captive let out a withering moan, “p-please … no …”

“No what?” Junhui blanched, his eyes suddenly wide and innocent. “You don’t think she’d like that? We could have a party together.”

The smile that stretched his lips at the sight of his prisoner’s tears was nothing short of terrifying and Joshua found himself yet again questioning what exactly had gone so wrong in that boy’s life to make him this way. 

“No … please … no …”

“No? I don’t think you should speak for her. I’ll ask her myself.”

“Jun,” Mingyu hissed in warning as the man tugged weakly on his restraints.

“What?” Junhui laughed, finally straightening up and turning to his two partners. “Geez, I’d never do anything. What kind of sicko do you think I am?”

Both of them opted not to answer that question and Joshua decided that they all needed to take a break before Junhui truly lost his sanity and Mingyu lost his patience.

“Put the aircon on and leave him here overnight,” he ordered, breathing diligently through his mouth to try and avoid the overwhelming stench of blood. “We’ll come back in the morning. Jun, go get some air and take Wonwoo with you.” 

They all walked a thin line between ethical human behaviour and the kind of monstrosities they all had crawling around inside of them. 

Junhui’s dark side didn’t usually slip but Joshua had seen it and it certainly wasn’t pretty.

With the air a chilling temperature and the door securely locked, Joshua nodded at the guards before heading straight for the kitchen, thankful to finally be rid of those screams echoing in his head.

When he got there, he was pleasantly surprised to see Hansol perched on the edge of the counter with his bandaged leg hidden by soft grey sweats and his still scabbed and discoloured chest on full display as he munched on a sandwich.

Beside him, the blueprint plans for a new weapon were spread out over the marble surface and Joshua rolled his eyes because, of course, the first thing the kid would do after almost getting blown up was build more explosives. 

“Hey,” the older boy greeted, retrieving a mug from the cupboard and filling it at the tap.

“Hey,” Hansol mumbled through a mouthful of bread before pausing mid-thought and looking sharply up at his hyung with narrowed eyes. “I’m fine, you know?”

Joshua glanced at him, “I know.” 

“I mean, yeah, I’m a little scarred up but I … you know?”

“Yeah, I know,” Joshua dismissed, distracting himself with the coffee machine. “Han took really good care of you.”

“Did not see that coming,” Hansol muttered under his breath and Joshua couldn’t help the slight twitch of his lips.

“I was worried when you weren’t moving around a lot but Han told me you needed some time. And look at you now.”

“Did not see that coming,” Hansol repeated. 

“I’m telling you, there are way too many snowflakes for two of them not to be alike. The odds are impossible!” came a shout from outside and the two of them exchanged an exhausted look, preparing themselves for the inevitable.

“You must be an idiot! He must be an idiot!” Minghao yelled as he banged the door open, marching into the kitchen with Mingyu trailing right behind. “Tell him he’s an idiot!”

They were all spared having to reply by the timely arrival of Seungcheol who glanced quickly around at the little congregation before inquiring, “Where’s Junhui? I need him to contact Charles.”

“I sent him and Wonwoo for some air,” Joshua relayed robotically, hoping that Seungcheol would interpret the information.

“Then where’s Chan?”

“He and Seokmin went to the chop shop.”

“And, before you ask, Soonyoung and Seungkwan haven’t been back since last week.”

Seungcheol nodded solemnly and Joshua could see that he, too, felt the strange uneasy prickling sensation creeping up his spine, the source of which he couldn’t quite identify.

He scanned the room.

He and Cheol were here. Hansol, Mingyu, Minghao, Seokmin and Chan were on recon, Junhui and Wonwoo were accounted for elsewhere, Seungkwan and Soonyoung were working, Jihoon hadn’t left his room …

“Who’s missing?” Joshua piped up, fighting the nervousness bubbling in his gut.

There was a pause as everybody glanced around.

“Uh …” Minghao spoke, widened eyes turning to his leader. “Who’s with the doctor?”

Then they heard the screaming.

\----------------------

Jeonghan told himself he was being a decent human being by doing this. It wasn’t exactly much, just a bottle of water at room temperature, but it would come as a heavenly relief to the captive they were keeping. 

He didn’t have to like the guy or agree with what he’d done to show him the smallest ounce of kindness, and it wasn’t like anybody else here was going to do it.

There were two guards standing vigil either side of the door but all it took for Jeonghan to get by was a fabricated explanation about Seungcheol asking him to assess the victim’s wounds. 

He didn’t exactly want to see what had been done to the man behind that door but he couldn’t turn back now.

The room was freezing, almost cold enough for Jeonghan to see his breath puffing from his lips in whispery clouds, and the guy tied to the chair in the centre was soaking wet.

Mingyu really hadn’t been playing around.

The removed skin had definitely been peeled off by hand and, by the look of the swelling around the man’s bloodied jaw, Jeonghan guessed that the pile of teeth on the table had been knocked loose with the hammer that lay beside them, accompanied by a whole host of other instruments, sharp and blunt alike. 

Practically all of his fingers had been bent at unnatural angles and the constant twitching of his muscles was a tell-tale sign of electrocution.

“Shit …” Jeonghan breathed.

He’d seen worse come through his own makeshift hospital in the last couple of days but to know with full certainty that Mingyu had been the one to inflict these injuries didn’t sit well in his gut.

He approached slowly and gingerly, stepping over the strips of skin and splatters of blood to get to the man he’d thought was unconscious right up until the moment he opened his eyes and glared at him from above a crooked nose.

“I brought you a drink,” Jeonghan offered, trying to erase every last drop of emotion from his voice.

The guy grinned at him. At least, it looked like it was meant to be a grin. It was wonky and one-sided and there were obviously no teeth involved but it was still the singularly most creepy thing he’d ever seen.

“There y’are …” the prisoner gurgled, more blood dribbling down his chin. “Pretty boy … they’re gonna find you … gonna kill you …”

“Right,” Jeonghan dismissed, deciding it was better to just ignore the mumbling. “I’m going to tilt your head back so you can swallow properly.”

He cupped his hand in the mess of matted, blood-soaked hair and helped the guy lean back just enough to take the mouth of the water bottle against his lips. 

No sooner had the first droplets trickled through, he spat them straight up into Jeonghan’s face with a spluttered cackle of amusement.

“Gonna kill you …” he repeated tauntingly. “Then Min’s gonna kill Coups. Gonna kill you all. Then we get his turf. Then … we win.”

It was hard to understand exactly what he was saying around all the blood and the distinct lack of teeth, but Jeonghan had got the point. 

Sungjong’s gang wanted Seungcheol dead so they could get his turf. Or whatever.

Wiping the moisture from his face, Jeonghan said nothing as he tried once more to tilt the man’s head back, growling under his breath as he did. 

“Look, I don’t know when you’ll get to drink again so I think you should at least swallow some of this.”

The only response he got was a soggy variation of ‘fuck you’ and he sighed in defeat, realising his good intentions were most definitely being rebuffed. 

He lowered the bottle and tried to crouch down, hoping that, if he could look this guy in the eye, he would be able to get through to him.

But no sooner had he brought himself down to his level, the prisoner reared his head back and struck him in the face, splitting his brow wide open.

Jeonghan heard the ugly _thunk_ of skulls slamming into each other as he felt his skin breaking, and he smelt the blood before his vision ran red and hazy in one eye, and only then did the pain kick in. 

It was white hot and it burned. 

“Fuck …” Jeonghan hissed, clapping both hands over the wound and trying to stand up only to have his legs give out, bringing him dangerously close to the captive’s injured leg which was, for reasons unknown, not restrained.

The man kicked out, catching Jeonghan square in the ribs and knocking him backwards onto the floor with a grunt of winded agony.

“What the fuck?” he wheezed, curling in on himself and clutching his abdomen. “I didn’t have to get you water, you fucking asshole …”

His head was pounding, his sight was blurred from a mixture of white and red, and he felt like he was going to throw up at any given moment. 

The wound just above his eye was bleeding profusely and his palm wasn’t enough to staunch the flow.

Ribs groaning in protest, he tried to sit up, and only then did he realise what had happened.

While he'd been temporarily out of action, the prisoner had used the newfound freedom in his leg to knock over the table of torture instruments, sending the knives and scalpels and – was that a blowtorch? – skittering over the concrete floor.

“No …” Jeonghan wheezed, desperately battling with his own body even though that fight seemed to have already been lost. “Stop it … No …”

He was too slow. He was too late. He was too stupid.

Their one and only lead in this case had taken one of the sharpest tools between his toes and contorted his leg in a way that allowed the only fingers that weren’t mangled and misshapen to grab hold.

Jeonghan tried to get up, tried to get his legs underneath him, but his knees buckled and he pitched forwards onto his hands, stomach heaving and head reeling in a concussed state of agonising confusion.

And before he knew what was happening, he was lying flat on his back with somebody else’s blood dripping onto his face from above and a pair of mutilated hands clasped around his throat.

“They gonna kill you, pretty boy …” his attacker slurred as Jeonghan bucked and twisted and tried everything in his power to throw the man off. “They gonna seal … that pretty mouth shut … and then they gonna kill you …”

He was weak. He’d spent hours being tortured. He hadn’t eaten, he hadn’t slept and, thanks to his own damn pride, he hadn’t drunk anything either. 

That was the only reason Jeonghan was strong enough to throw him off.

“HELP!” he screamed, frantically swatting at the blood in his eyes. “S.COUPS! S.COUPS, HELP!”

This was his fault. He’d interfered. He’d been too ignorant for his own good. He shouldn’t have come down here and now this guy was going to escape and they were never going to get the answers they needed and these Min people were going to slaughter them and it was all his fault.

“COUPS!”

There was the grating sound of metal against concrete and he flipped onto his back just in time to roll out of the way and avoid the knife that had been aimed at his head.

“Come on, pretty boy … Ya gonna die anyway … Please let it be me that kills ya …”

He shouldn’t be able to move in his condition. His bones were broken, his skin was gone, his neurons were fried. It was surprising that he was even still alive, let alone crawling towards Jeonghan with a sick look of hunger in his glazed eyes and a blade clutched in his shattered hand.

He lunged forwards and Jeonghan acted on impulse, grabbing onto the arm that wielded the weapon and twisting it around so it was positioned at just the right angle for the bastard to fall straight onto it.

Jeonghan’s heart felt like it stopped with his. 

There was a body lying on top of him and somebody else’s blood seeping through his shirt and, as the sound of footsteps came pounding down the hallway, he realised he’d just killed someone.

“Han!”

The weight was heaved off him, hands fastened around his shoulders and he had just enough time to register Seungcheol’s terrified face swimming in front of him before he allowed himself to completely shut down.

“I’m sorry!” he blurted, trying once again to clean the blood from his eyes but only succeeding in smearing it across his cheek. “I’m sorry … I’m sorry … I killed him … I’m sorry …”

He didn’t realise he was being hugged until his face was pressed into the crook of Seungcheol’s neck, one hand cupping the back of his head and the other wrapped around his torso.

And he clung back with all the strength he had, twisting his fingers into the fabric of the leader’s shirt and trying to shake the image of what he’d done from his addled mind.

“Are you alright?” Seungcheol asked, drawing back from the embrace and taking Jeonghan’s face in his hands so he could inspect the wound. “Fucking hell, Han … This is …”

“It’s cold,” Jeonghan interrupted in a monotone, his emotions slipping from his mind as quickly as the adrenaline slipped from his body. “It’s cold in here. I’m cold.”

“I think he has a concussion,” came Minghao’s voice from somewhere to the left.

“How can you know that when you’re not a doctor?”

“Can you two not do that right now?” Seungcheol snapped, still cradling Jeonghan’s bleeding body in his arms.

“Is he dead?” the boy whispered. “Did I kill him? I’m sorry … I didn’t mean to … He was going to kill me … I was being nice …”

Seungcheol was shushing him gently, grabbing hold of his hand to stop him further disturbing the mess on his face and the silence that followed meant that Joshua’s voice rang out loud and clear.

“He’s dead.”

Jeonghan had killed someone. He had actually killed someone. It didn’t matter that he’d been defending himself because he’d come down here and he’d helped him escape and then he’d killed him.

“Fuck!” Joshua roared, kicking at the fallen table in his fury. “What the fuck are we supposed to do now? We don’t have anything!”

Except that wasn’t quite true.

“He told me …” Jeonghan mumbled, trying to sit up a little more even as the world around him spun. “They’re looking for me. They want to kill me … to keep me quiet … Then the Mins will kill Cheol and they … they can get his turf.”

He looked Seungcheol straight in the eye as he said it, silently imploring him not to be angry at him for what he’d done to impede their progress, but Seungcheol was staring back at him with absolutely nothing but worry written in his face.

“They killed a Min for some fucking turf?” Minghao swore from behind them. “These idiots … Fucking idiots …”

Jeonghan’s head hurt. He was bleeding. His vision was doubling. Somewhere in the back of his mind, he could feel himself fading but he couldn't for the life of him figure out what he should be doing about it.

“Han? Hey, Han? Baby, eyes open! Come on!”

There was the sound of a door opening, somebody said something similar to, “what did I miss?” and then Jeonghan was gone.


	11. Peppermint And Peace

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> No real Triggers in this chapter  
> Mentions of panic attacks and Jeonghan cries a butt ton  
> enjoy

Jeonghan only made it as far as the staircase, blanket still wrapped tightly around his battered body, before the wobbling of his knees left him too unstable to go any further. 

Opting to sink onto the bottom step rather than risk a tumble down the entire flight, he hunched in on himself and buried his face in his hands.

He was getting over the fact that he’d actually killed somebody much faster than the fact that he’d almost been defeated by a man who should have been in his most vulnerable state.

He was weak. There was no denying it now. Weak and frail and a liability to this team. In the event of an attack – which seemed to be increasing in likelihood with each passing day – even Jihoon and Seokmin were better suited to defending themselves than he was.

In a pathetic attempt to prove himself wrong, Jeonghan wrapped a shaking hand around the bannister and hauled his aching frame back into a standing position, grunting with the effort and wincing as his muscles screamed in protest.

The kitchen had never felt further away and, by the time he finally stumbled over the threshold, his forehead was glistening with sweat and stray strands of his hair were plastered to his face.

Relieved that he hadn’t passed out in the middle of the hallway, he collapsed onto the nearest stool, propped his elbows on the table and held his pulsing head in his hands.

Seokmin had pinned the wound on his brow together with butterfly bandages and his ribs were stained a pretty spectacular shade of purple.

Pathetic.

Fucking pathetic. 

“Moping never solves anything,” Junhui pointed out, filling the silence as he strutted into the room, one eyebrow arching at the sight of Jeonghan before he walked straight past him to start the coffee machine. “What’s wrong? Besides the guy you killed last night?”

The only sound Jeonghan was capable of making was a pitiful groan.

“It will get better,” Junhui continued absently as the water bubbled and boiled. “And you aren’t weak if that’s what you’re thinking. That guy was trained. Mingyu and I were at him for hours and he still didn’t talk.” 

“I wish that made me feel better but it really doesn’t,” Jeonghan sighed, squeezing his eyes shut against the sudden increase in the tension within his skull.

“Are you going to rest up?”

Jeonghan would have rolled his eyes if he wasn’t so certain that it would hurt.

“I can’t just sit around all day.”

“Come with me then,” Junhui ordered, downing his coffee in one swig and beckoning the doctor towards the door. “There’s something I want you to see.”

Only then did Jeonghan realise Junhui’s voice had lost its usual tilt and lift and he struggled to keep up with the boy’s lengthy strides as they marched into the training room.

“We observe today,” his guide stated, ushering him towards the benches at the side of the room.

Chan and Minghao were going at it in the middle of the floor and it seemed like a fairly even match. They sidestepped and dodged each other’s blows with ease, ducking and dipping and neither of them looking like they were actually trying to hit the other.

“Who do you think has the advantage?” Junhui whispered and Jeonghan watched the movements of the two younger boys.

Minghao may be the skinniest person he’d ever met, second only to that patient with anorexia he’d had a few months ago. His feet were light and he moved so quickly, never truly staying on the ground as he bounced around the ring.

Whereas, Chan was short and small but had far more muscle bulging off his bones. His techniques were closer to what Jeonghan had seen on TV: feet planted firmly, fists up to his face, jaw set.

“Uh … Chan?”

Junhui didn’t respond, merely observing with an interested arch in his eyebrows as the two fighters circled each other for a few more minutes before Minghao lunged forwards. 

Jeonghan had time only to blink before the kid had Chan pinned down by the back of his neck, legs locked and tangled with his own and one arm twisted behind his back.

“Why did you choose Chan?” Junhui asked as the opponents got up off the floor, laughing and clapping each other on the back in congratulations and commiserations.

“He … he looks stronger.”

“He is stronger.” 

“So why didn’t he win?”

Junhui shrugged, and Jeonghan narrowed his eyes. 

“Shouldn’t you say something profound about skills or mastering the arts or finding inner peace? Avatar mode, Kung Fu Panda … anything?”

“I’m glad you find this amusing,” Junhui shot back. “If I fought Mingyu, who do you think would win?”

Jeonghan looked him up and down, taking note of his physique and thinking back to the times he’d actually seen him fight, but then remembering the sheer size of Mingyu. 

He seemed to be the obvious choice and Jeonghan voiced as much.

“You aren’t thinking about this the right way,” Junhui shook his head. “It’s not about size or strength. You just have to work at it. Minghao’s studied martial arts from the age of three, Mingyu’s body has been trained not to feel pain, Cheol was born into a world that had no time for children and I was tossed into a forest at the age of nine and raised by nature, surviving only with my fists.”

Jeonghan blanched, “But I thought –”

“The point is, Hannie, you didn’t lose to that guy because you’re weak. You just need practise. But look at all the other stuff you’re good at. You can shoot, you’re level-headed even when your life’s in danger and you’re the best healer we’ve got.”

Jeonghan didn’t know how to respond to that so he resorted to just nodding dumbly, still keeping an eye on Minghao and Chan as they each picked up a pair of Nunchucks and started twirling the black batons around their own bodies.

“Oh, this is a lost cause,” Junhui snorted. “Hao was born with one of those in his hand. Nobody can beat him.”

Jeonghan wasn’t listening anymore.

\---------------------

He startled awake with the image of the dead prisoner’s lifeless eyes burned into the back of his mind and shook himself, blinking into the darkness until his vision focused. Turning his head against the pillow, he looked to the flashing numbers on his bedside that read 6pm.

It appeared that, despite what he’d said to Junhui about not sitting around all day, he’d drifted into a much-needed slumber that had lasted well over twelve hours.

A soft groan bubbled from his throat at the realisation. How could he prove his worth if he couldn’t even take a hit to the head? All the others had fought through so much worse. Hansol was up and about only a few weeks after being blown up. Seungcheol took a knife to the gut and was back to work a day later. 

Jeonghan pressed a hand into his chest and pushed down, hard, trying to sooth the building anxiety that made his lungs feel like they were about to shrivel up inside his ribcage.

Refusing to lie here and spiral into yet another panic attack, he sat up and swung his legs off the edge of the bed so he could tug on his boots. Barely a second later, the door burst open and Kihyun practically threw himself into the room, eyes wide and shoulders heaving.

It took Jeonghan completely by surprise. He hadn’t really seen the guy outside of the med bay and had never seen him without a smile on his face. Now that smile had been replaced by a toxic cocktail of fear and fury.

For a moment, the two of them just stared at each other. Jeonghan was waiting for Kihyun to initiate the conversation but his impromptu visitor seemed far too dazed to string together a coherent sentence.

There was blood smeared down the front of his shirt and dirt on his face. 

“Kihyun … what is it?”

He could literally see Kihyun shaking as he stuttered, “Hyun … Hyunwoo …”

“What?” Jeonghan blurted, cautiously approaching and reaching out to take Kihyun’s shoulder only for his hand to suddenly be seized in a vice-like grip.

“Hyunwoo …” Kihyun repeated, tugging Jeonghan through the door and down the hallway.

“Kihyun, please …” Jeonghan tried, stumbling confusedly in his attempts to keep up. “Calm down … Who’s Hyunwoo? What happened?”

Kihyun’s voice cracked.

“Shownu’s been shot.”

\-----------------

Jeonghan knew very little about Shownu and Kihyun. He was aware of what they did and that they didn’t specifically belong to Coups but they did frequently work alongside each other in a close relationship of mutual respect.

And he could also see that they were madly in love.

The wound wasn’t as bad as it could have been. They had no X-Ray machine so Jeonghan couldn’t know for sure but, as far as he could tell, the bullet had gone straight through Shownu’s shoulder without hitting any bones or major blood vessels.

Kihyun hadn’t stopped crying the entire time his boyfriend was being stitched up, clinging to Shownu’s hand and nodding frantically whenever the patient told him it was okay, as if he wasn’t the one with a hole in his body. 

It was stupid but Jeonghan felt the slightest twinges of jealousy stinging at his heart when he saw the two of them together and had to glance over at Seungcheol and Joshua who were hunched over Jihoon and his laptop at the table before his discomfort showed on his face.

The three of them were pulling up surveillance feeds from around the chop shop to try and identify the shooter. It really wasn’t a situation to be envious of.

It wasn’t like Jeonghan hadn’t known from the start that he found Seungcheol insanely attractive but the sudden realisation that he wanted to snuggle under a blanket with him and eat ice cream from the tub threw him completely off guard.

He’d never had a boyfriend. He was an only child, his parents saw him as nothing more than a disappointment and he was still a virgin at twenty-four. He’d never had anybody to snuggle with or share kisses so he had no idea why he wanted to start being so mushy now. 

Wincing in pain, he put the thought from his mind. His head hurt far too much to be worrying about such insignificant things when he was stuck in the middle of a literal turf war.

And besides, Seungcheol would never even look at him in that way.

Even though he’d kissed him. And called him ‘baby’ on more than one occasion. That was completely unrelated.

“You okay there, Hannie?”

Jeonghan flinched, mumbling a hurried apology to Kihyun when he pulled a little unnecessarily on Shownu’s stitches.

“Yeah, I’m good,” he breathed, trying to ignore the way Seungcheol’s eyes narrowed in suspicion as he stalked across the room. 

Jeonghan tied off the final stitch and snipped through the excess nylon just in time to feel a warm – very warm – hand cup the back of his neck, massaging the tension from his muscles and gently running its fingers through his hair.

And he melted.

“You did good, baby,” Seungcheol muttered worriedly. “Why don’t you come have a seat with me, huh?”

Jeonghan just nodded, allowing an arm to slip around his shoulders and gently lead him over to the chair next to Jihoon. The hacker’s fingers were flying across the keyboard, procuring feeds from every and any camera within a twenty-foot radius of the crime scene.

As he sat there, Seungcheol’s body pressed up against his back with the leader’s hands rubbing soothing circles into his shoulders, Jeonghan spotted the same car zipping past in several frames and something pricked his memory but he couldn’t quite place it.

“It’s the same model from Hansol’s attack,” Jihoon muttered through gritted teeth. “The plates are wrong, though. It might be unrelated but I sincerely doubt it.”

Jeonghan squinted at the screen, a definite sense of anticipation settling in his gut. He knew that car.

“That …” he whispered, trailing off mid-sentence and going completely unnoticed by everyone.

Jihoon switched the feed one final time and Jeonghan’s world screeched to a bone-shattering stop as none other than Hyuk – his best friend and roommate – aimed a gun at Shownu’s back and pulled the trigger. 

Jeonghan didn’t even realise he’d been slowly approaching the screen until it was right in front of him, and from this distance, the frizzy white blonde hair poking out from beneath a black cap was unmistakable.

Hyuk had tried to hide his face with a mask but Jeonghan would be able to identify him anywhere.

“Han, what’s wrong?” Seungcheol called softly, but the hand he rested on the small of the doctor’s back went completely unnoticed.

“It’s … Oh my God …”

“It’s what?” Joshua pushed nervously. “Do you know him?”

Jeonghan could only nod.

“Who is he?” 

“Hyuk.”

“The Hyuk from your call logs?” Jihoon balked, opening up Jeonghan’s phone records that even Jeonghan himself hadn’t seen.

There were dozens of missed calls and over a hundred unread messages but it was the last one that truly had Jeonghan’s stomach threatening to spew everything he’d eaten in the past twenty-four hours.

_Han, I don’t know if you’ll see this but just sit tight. I’m coming for you_

“Your friend is our copycat killer,” Shownu interjected from where he was still laid up on the bed, Kihyun helping him slot his injured arm into a sling. “He’s been mimicking the Mins’ calling card and picking off your guys.”

Jeonghan was going to be sick.

“What’s his name, Jeonghan?” Jihoon snapped, hands already hovering over the keyboard. “His real name?”

“Donghyuk … Kim Donghyuk …”

This was his fault. This was all his fault.

There were a few clicks of the keyboard and then Jeonghan’s best friend’s face was plastered across the computer screen.

“He’s a Min?” Joshua blurted, leaning forwards to scan the information Jihoon had pulled up.

“This doesn’t make sense. Why is he killing his own people?”

They were all staring at him. They knew this was his doing. They knew he was to blame for Shownu, for Hansol, for all those people who’d fucking died.

“He’s doing it for Jeonghan.”

He couldn’t be here anymore. He couldn’t be in the same room as the people who’d lost their lives because of his friend. _His_ friend. His sweet, kind, completely-not-murderous friend. The only person who’d kept him sane in med school.

“I … I have to go …”

His ears were ringing, his eyes were burning, his footsteps were uncoordinated and he only just made it out into the corridor before a strangled sob burst free from his lips and he pitched forwards, clinging to his stomach and gasping for air. 

“Hey …”

There was a hand rubbing his back, combing his hair out of his face, and he couldn’t draw a proper breath. How could Seungcheol be comforting him now that he knew what he’d done?

“I’m sorry,” Jeonghan gasped, staggering backwards and trying to pull away from Seungcheol’s open arms. “I’m so sorry. I didn’t … I didn’t know … This is all my fault …”

“Baby, this is not your fault.”

“How?” he cried, the first few tears gliding down his cheeks as he stared Seungcheol – the man whose friends had been slaughtered – right in the eye. 

“How is it not my fault, Cheol? He did this because of me! Because he was looking for me! He shot Shownu, he tried to murder Hansol and he's butchered countless others! Because of me!”

Seungcheol’s hands were on his face, framing his cheeks as he resolutely shook his head even though his own eyes were misty and his teeth were grinding behind his jaw.

“You didn’t know,” he said, slowly and definitively. “You didn’t ask him to do any of that, did you?”

“No … Never …”

“Then it’s not your fault.”

But Jeonghan couldn’t accept that. He just couldn’t. There was no way he could be allowed to walk away from this completely blameless.

“Hyunwoo …”

“Is fine,” Seungcheol countered before he could even finish his whimper.

“Hansol …”

“Is fine!”

But the rest of them weren’t and there could be many more to come. Who knew how far Hyuk was willing to go? He’d already proved that he could kill in cold blood, that he could shoot an unarmed man in the back. There was no telling what he would do next.

“I have to leave,” Jeonghan whispered, wriggling free of Seungcheol’s grip. “I have to leave right now … I … I have to go back to him … I have to stop this …”

He should have known the big bad mafia boss would try to stop him, would try to hold onto him as tightly as humanly possible, but it didn’t prevent him from fighting against the hands that grabbed hold of his wrists.

“No, Han,” Seungcheol said, the first dregs of desperation filtering through. “You can’t go out there. Sungjong’s still looking for you. If they find you, they’ll kill you. It’s too dangerous.”

“My best friend is murdering people!” Jeonghan screamed, choking on his own tears and struggling against Seungcheol’s grip with all his might. “I have to stop him before he hurts anybody else! Before he hurts you!”

He hadn’t meant for those words to slip from his mouth but there wasn’t time to dwell on them or how they made Seungcheol feel. Hyuk was out there right now, possibly preparing for another murder, and Jeonghan was the only one who could stop it.

“You will die if you go out there!” Seungcheol roared back, taking Jeonghan by the shoulders and slamming him against the nearest wall. “They will take you and they will torture you and they will kill you!”

Jeonghan could barely see through the tears as he tried and failed to push Seungcheol away. Some part of him knew there was no chance of beating the man in a battle of strength but he was too far gone to realise that just yet.

So he looked that big bad bloodthirsty murderer right in the eye and whispered with a voice that cracked on almost every syllable, “Why do you care?”

There was a pause and, for a split second, Jeonghan had thought he’d won.

But then Seungcheol was kissing him.

It had been impossible to tell the first time since he’d been having a panic attack, but Jeonghan was kissing him back. He tasted of peppermint and warmth and safety and when, after a lifetime of timelessness, they finally pulled apart, Jeonghan wasn’t crying anymore.

“I don’t know,” Seungcheol rasped, still clutching the doctor’s face in his hands as he brought their foreheads together, eyes closed and inhales shallow. “I don’t know why I care. I don’t know and it scares the holy fucking hell out of me but I can’t let you die. I just … I just can’t.”

Jeonghan could feel the breath on his face.

“We will sort this, okay?” Seungcheol continued, giving Jeonghan’s head a tiny little shake to cement his point. “I don’t know how but we will sort this. We will stop your friend. I promise. But you can’t … You can’t die, okay?”

He still couldn’t breathe but now for a completely different reason.

“Okay, baby?”

Baby. He was his baby. He was his.

“Okay.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Questions and Comments are encouraged  
> 💜 talk to us


	12. Live Free, Die Happy

Everything was blur from that moment on.

Jeonghan caught fragments of the scenarios he was being led into, remembered rattling off the few things he knew about Hyuk’s past to Jihoon, felt Seungcheol’s presence never leave his side, but everything else was fuzzy.

He no longer knew whether the shock had come from the discovery that his best friend was a murderer or from Seungcheol’s sudden declaration of concern and there wasn’t really enough time to figure it out.

They weren’t talking about it. They weren’t addressing it and, if Jeonghan hadn’t had the mafia boss’ hand between his shoulder blades, he would have thought that he was angry at him.

But part of him was glad that they were choosing to ignore the kiss and the confession. He wasn’t sure he would be able to handle that on top of everything else that seemed to be throwing itself at them with relentless force.

They technically had three enemies now: the Mins, Sungjong and Hyuk.

The Mins were by far the most dangerous but also the most reasonable. Once Seungcheol could prove that he’d had nothing to do with Junki’s execution, they would leave them alone. But until then, they had to treat every breath as if it was their last.

Sungjong’s gang was small but scrappy. They’d had a vendetta against Seungcheol since his arrival in Seoul so it only made sense that they would kill a Min and put the blame on him to get him out of the way. With the infamous Coups dead, Seoul would be theirs.

And then there was Hyuk. Hyuk who probably thought he was doing the right thing. Hyuk who probably believed he was trying to rescue his friend from the people who’d taken him. But Hyuk who had also tortured and slaughtered dozens in the process.

“Are you going to kill him?” Jeonghan whispered, drawing Seungcheol’s attention from where he’d been tapping at something on his tablet screen. “Hyuk. When you find him, are you going to kill him?”

He’d been expecting an outright ‘yes’ to spill from Seungcheol’s lips. Hyuk had killed his people and that meant he needed to be punished, but instead, the leader looked truly conflicted, chewing on his bottom lip as he stared at Jeonghan’s dishevelled form.

“That depends,” he said at last. “If I think that he’s about to hurt me or one of my guys then I’ll have to. No questions asked.”

Jeonghan nodded his understanding and returned his gaze to the floor, slumping in his chair and propping his chin in his palm.

“But,” Seungcheol continued. “I understand where he’s coming from. If anybody took Chan or Junhui or any of them then I would do exactly the same thing. So, as long as Hyuk’s willing to cooperate, I don’t see why we can’t have a civil conversation to try and work things out.”

From the corner of the common room, Joshua gave a poorly-concealed scoff of incredulity which Seungcheol resolutely ignored, and Jeonghan understood why.

These people were brutal. They’d been perfectly happy to kill him when they’d first met him and he hadn’t even tried to hurt any of them. There was no way that civil conversation was their usual method of resolution.

Seungcheol was saying this for Jeonghan’s sake and Jeonghan’s sake only.

It was well past midnight but sleep was out of the question. With three separate individuals out for their blood, everybody was working flat out to try and come up with a solution.

Ideally, they would take Jeonghan to the Mins, get him to tell his story, show them the video on his phone and clear Seungcheol’s name. But it wasn’t like they just had a number they could ring that would put them straight through to the country’s most notorious gangsters.

“I need some air,” Jeonghan mumbled, pushing out of his chair and praying that his legs were steady enough to take his weight.

“Give me a second,” Seungcheol shot back from where he was still engrossed in whatever was on his tablet. “I just need to send this message and then I’ll take you out into the yard.”

“No,” Jeonghan refused, shaking his head slowly from side to side. “Not the yard. I … I need to get out of here.”

“Han …”

“Just for a little bit,” he pleaded, imploring Seungcheol’s reluctant expression to soften. “I need to be able to walk this off. I need … I just need some time away from this place.”

Seungcheol looked like he’d rather bite off his own arm, eyes rallying between Jeonghan and Joshua as though he was trying to figure out the best way to say ‘no’.

“I can’t leave, Han,” he finally settled on. “Not right now. Not tonight.”

Jeonghan had to resist the urge to punch something. He understood that he was a target but it was the middle of the fucking night.

It wasn’t like there were going to be hoards of people roaming the streets and all he was asking for was one quick trip around the block to prove to himself that the world hadn’t stopped existing outside of this bunker. 

“Tomorrow, baby,” Seungcheol appeased, rising from his chair and taking a step forward. “I promise, tomorrow.”

And Jeonghan was just about to resign and accept his fate when Joshua piped up for the first time since they’d all congregated here several hours previously.

“I can take him, Cheol.”

“Really?” Jeonghan gaped, shocked that the boy could be so compassionate.

Joshua smirked, “Don’t flatter yourself. A walk would do me good, too.”

They both looked to Seungcheol who opened his mouth in preparation to spit some kind of indignant refusal but, at the last moment, he seemed to realise that he was beaten and huffed out a sigh of exasperated disapproval.

“Take a radio,” he shot at Joshua who spread his arms as if to say ‘of course’. “Stay within the perimeter, keep your phone on and get back here in thirty minutes.”

“Anything else?”

“Don’t be a smartass, Shua.”

For the first time in as long as he could remember, Jeonghan felt relief. 

He was starting to think that he was going to be kept in this godforsaken building until they were eventually invaded and he was executed along with the rest but, thanks to Joshua, he could have his moment of freedom tonight.

“Here,” Seungcheol said, and Jeonghan looked down to see a revolver being pressed into his palm. “Junhui told me you can shoot so stick that in your back pocket and kill anybody who comes near you.”

“Okay.”

There was a split second where nobody moved and Seungcheol’s eyes looked unsure, not just about sending Jeonghan away but about something else, too. And then he threw caution to the winds, leaned forwards and kissed the doctor on the forehead.

“Come back soon,” he ordered as soon as he’d pulled away, retrieving his tablet from the table and using it to avoid eye contact.

Jeonghan could feel his cheeks burning but, at the same time, there was an indescribable warmth spreading through his chest. He should have expected that Joshua would ruin it.

“Where’s my kiss?”

“Just get out of here already!”

It felt strange to laugh in the middle of so much destruction. 

\--------------------

The air on his face felt different to when he’d been out in the yard at the back of the bunker. This felt free and uncaged and liberating. This was what it felt like to actually breathe and Jeonghan was taking advantage of every second.

He and Joshua were wrapped head to toe in coats and scarves and hats to protect them from the cold and Seungcheol had insisted they wear masks just in case anybody happened to identify them but that didn’t matter.

They kept to the shadows, skirting the edges of the streets and staying predominantly out of sight of the houses. It wasn’t perfect, it wasn’t the scenic stroll Jeonghan had been hoping for, but it was exactly what he’d needed.

Any longer in that bunker and he’d have gone insane.

“So,” came Joshua’s snide sneering, slightly muffled from behind his face mask. “You and Coups, huh?”

Jeonghan rolled his eyes, thankful that the smile he couldn’t fight was at least hidden from view, “It’s none of your business.”

“Hey,” Joshua shrugged. “Coups’ my best friend. If you make him happy then you make him happy but do you really think that this is going to work out?”

Any trace of a smile slid from Jeonghan’s face like soap through wet hands.

“What did you say?”

They were still walking, staring straight ahead and avoiding looking at each other, but the airy atmosphere was suddenly rife with tension as thick as the snow at their feet.

“I know it’s harsh,” Joshua continued, kicking at a rock with the toe of his shoe. “But we’re at war here. Coups could die. You could die. Any of us could die. And even if we don’t, what are you going to do once this is all over? Just abandon your life and run away into the sunset together? Does that sound at all plausible to you?”

No, was the honest answer. No, it really didn’t, and Jeonghan had known from the start that there was no future for him and Seungcheol but, maybe, for just a few moments, he’d wanted to feel something that wasn’t fear and guilt and grief.

“Maybe that’s why we should do it,” he muttered, drawing Joshua’s attention to his clothed face. “You said it yourself. Any day could be our last so why can’t we … I don’t know, fool around? Have something to make us happy before we get our brains blown out?”

He took a deep breath, trying to steel himself for what he was about to say.

“I like Coups and I think he likes me and maybe it’s all going to end in disaster but don’t you want to live free so you can die happy?”

Joshua didn’t respond and Jeonghan felt his patience wearing thin.

“Shua, seriously, are you –”

“Shut up,” Joshua hissed and suddenly there was a bruising grip around Jeonghan’s wrist. “Keep walking. Do not turn around.”

Well, if that wasn’t terrifying then he didn’t know what was but he obeyed, falling into step beside his guard and trying to keep his breathing as evenly spaced as possible as the hairs on the back of his neck all stood erect.

“Why?” he whispered, his free hand already halfway to the gun in his belt.

“Somebody’s following us.”

Oh, shit. Shit, shit, shit, shit.

Jeonghan’s heart was thudding against his ribcage, adrenaline circulating and senses on the fullest alert as he tried to keep his posture light and carefree, looking as if he was just on an oblivious stroll through the streets.

“What do we do?”

He didn’t get a response and didn’t push for one either, hoping against hope that Joshua was staying silent so that he could focus on figuring out a way to get them back to the bunker in one piece.

Why couldn’t they have just had thirty minutes? That’s all he’d asked for. Just thirty minutes of freedom.

Now he was listening for it, he could make out the soft rhythmic thudding of footsteps behind them, gradually gaining speed and momentum as whoever it was prepared for attack.

“Shua …”

Was this how he was going to die? Would they kill him straight away or would they whisk him away to some basement where they broke his fingers and pulled out his teeth before finally putting him out of his misery?

“Shua …”

It was getting harder and harder not to break into a run. He wanted to sprint as fast as he possibly could and not stop until he was back in that bunker and wrapped in Seungcheol’s arms. He didn’t want to die like this.

“Sh …”

“Go!” Joshua yelled, planting a hand in the centre of Jeonghan’s back and shoving him forwards. “Run now!”

And he did. He ran like his life depended on it, unzipping his coat as he went so that it wouldn’t impede his legs from moving too much.

He could hear his blood rushing in his ears and his heart thumping in his throat and the adrenaline pumping his muscles with the energy they needed to sprint like there was no fucking tomorrow.

His gun started to slip from his belt and he grabbed hold of it before it could slide down the back of his jeans, pulling it out and keeping it clutched in his sweaty palm in case he needed to use it.

“Go left!” Joshua yelled from just a few feet behind him.

Jeonghan didn’t give himself time to think, throwing his body into the alleyway he'd only just spotted in time, plunging his already gloomy surroundings into virtual darkness.

Gasping for breath and clutching the stitch in his side, he spun on his heel to face the direction he’d come just in time to hear the gunshot and Joshua’s scream of agony.

“No …”

He lunged forwards in an attempt to catch him but the force of the impact was too strong and Joshua crumpled onto the concrete, blood bubbling up from the wound in his thigh as his throat emitted a series of anguished grunts and groans.

“Get up!” Jeonghan begged, glancing desperately to the side their attackers were advancing from. “Get up, Shua, please!”

There were at least three of them, guns in hand, masks and baseball caps obscuring their faces from view and, in a couple of seconds, they were going to be on top of them.

Letting out a roar of agony through gritted teeth, Joshua clawed his way up with one hand clutching his leg and the other frantically shoving Jeonghan backwards.

"Keep going. Just keep … Get the fuck off me!" 

A giant clad completely in black came from nowhere, humongous arms wrapping around Joshua’s body from behind and practically wrenching him off his feet even as the captive bucked and twisted and snapped his head back in an attempt to catch delicate flesh.

He was more than capable of taking care of himself but with blood seeping through the material of his jeans and pain coursing through every cell of his body, he just wasn’t strong enough.

“Let him go!” Jeonghan bellowed, raising his gun and trying to take as accurate an aim as he could. “Let him go right now!”

He wasn’t sure if he could make the shot. Joshua was too close. The risk of hitting him was too high. Jeonghan’s hand was steady as a rock but he didn’t trust himself to pull the trigger with Seungcheol’s best friend in the firing line.

“Put down the gun, pretty boy,” one of the other guys growled, advancing a couple of steps despite the threat of imminent death. “You and I both know you’re not gonna shoot.”

Joshua had one hand scrabbling at his jacket pocket where Jeonghan knew he’d stuffed the radio. The two of them locked gazes, exchanging some kind of silent message that held no words yet meant the same thing to both minds.

“Oh, yeah?” Jeonghan clapped back. “Watch me.”

He lowered the gun ever so slightly and flexed his index finger.

The kickback was strong, jarring his muscles, and the sound of the shot reverberated through the alley walls at such a force that it almost deafened him but he knew he’d hit his target when his assailant let out a howl of agony.

Jeonghan had hit him directly in the knee cap, providing enough of a distraction for Joshua to get a solid grip on the radio and bring it up.

“SOS!” he screamed into the speaker, holding it at arms’ length in an attempt to keep it from his captor’s reach for as long as possible. “SOS! We need --!”

His words were cut off but Jeonghan didn’t get a chance to find out why as the third man lurched forwards, eyes cold and unfeeling and gloved hands clutching the handle of a knife that Jeonghan knew was meant for him.

He tried to lift the gun again but it was knocked from his hand, clattering to the ground and sliding into the shadows, never to be seen again.

And Jeonghan thought that was it. That they’d finally got to him and it was nobody’s fault but his own. Because he hadn’t been able to follow orders and stay inside for just one more day.

The first attacker had a hand over Joshua’s mouth and another digging mercilessly into the bullet wound, keeping his captive immobilised from the agony he was inflicting. 

The second was still writhing on the floor, clutching his knee and spewing expletives at an impressive rate.

And the third had Jeonghan cornered, completely helpless to protect Joshua or himself from whatever was about to happen.

But then there was a fourth.

A fourth that slipped out of the shadows in complete silence, looped an arm around the neck of the man who was about to gut Jeonghan and slit his throat in one quick, clean movement.

Blood was spurting in every direction as the body fell but Jeonghan was too set on rescuing Joshua to pay much attention. That was, until he felt fingers digging into the flesh of his upper arm, viciously enough to bruise and he was being wrenched backwards.

“Let me go!” he shouted, fighting tooth and nail to get free but achieving nothing. “Let me go! Let go of me, you fucking ---!”

“Shh!” came the hiss in his ear, hot breath ghosting over the side of his neck as he struggled. “Han, stop! It’s me! Stop fighting! We need to go!”

No. It couldn’t be. It couldn’t be. No.

“Hyuk?”

“Yeah, let’s go!”

Jeonghan was too stunned to move, too stunned to even breathe. 

He tried to take in the sight of his so-called saviour and, although it was too dark to see five feet in front of him, he could just about make out a tuft of white blonde hair poking out from beneath a ball cap.

“Come on!” Hyuk yelled, giving Jeonghan another tug. “We have to go! Come on!”

They made it roughly three steps before Jeonghan came back to himself and dug his heels into the ground, bringing them both to a stop.

“No!” he cried, turning and trying to go back only to have an arm linking around his chest. “No! Let go! I have to … Joshua! Joshua!”

He couldn’t see him anymore. Hyuk had wrestled him into another branch of the alleyway and he could no longer see Joshua or the people who’d been restraining him. 

And what was scarier was that he couldn’t hear them either.

“Hyuk, let me go!” he screamed. “Joshua! Joshua! Jo—”

From somewhere far off in the distance, he heard the words, “I’m sorry, Han”, before pain erupted across the back of his skull and his vision clouded out.

There were arms around him, preventing him from falling, sweeping him up off the ground and taking off with him in their grip. 

He couldn’t see, he couldn’t hear, he couldn’t feel and he tried to call Joshua’s name one last time but it never came.

The darkness, however, did.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ask us questions leave is comments 💜  
> constructive criticism is encouraged


	13. Small Man's Shadow

Jeonghan awoke to screams.

At first, he thought they were his own but as his senses slowly returned to him, he realised that those screams only existed inside his head. And that they belonged to somebody he had been starting to care about.

“Joshua …”

He tried to sit up, battling against the weight of his own body, but instantly regretted the attempt when his skull exploded in a firework display of popping lights and pain. A hiss left his throat and he clutched his head in his hands as if that would help relieve the pressure building up between his ears.

“Hey, hey, hey …”

A voice. Another voice. Was it Joshua’s? No. It wasn’t Seungcheol’s either.

“It’s me. Han, it’s me.”

Jeonghan looked up through watering eyes, squinting against the blinding lights and withering away from the ringing in his ears, to see the one person he thought he would never see again sitting on the edge of his bed.

“Hyuk?”

The boy’s worried face split into a grin and before Jeonghan knew what was happening, they were hugging. Perhaps maybe a little tighter than they should be with his condition but hugging nonetheless.

“I was so scared,” Hyuk whispered into his friend’s shoulder, clinging to the back of his shirt with all his might. “I didn’t think I was going to find you. Everybody else said you were dead but … but I knew … I knew you couldn't be.”

Jeonghan pulled away in an attempt to get a better look at his roommate’s face but the pulsating throb at the back of his head had him hunching in on himself with a poorly concealed whine of discomfort.

“I’m sorry,” Hyuk said, and he really did sound it. “I didn’t want to hit you but you were in shock. You didn’t know what you were saying and I had to get you out of there or we would have both been killed.”

Hyuk had saved him. There was no doubt about that. He had saved him from those people – whoever they were – that had tried to take him but, as a result, he’d left Joshua behind. Injured, overpowered, defenceless.

Would he still be alive? Or would they have put a bullet through his brain the moment they realised their actual target had slipped away?

“Do you think you need to go to a hospital?” Hyuk pushed, carefully stroking the back of Jeonghan’s head the way he’d always done before when his friend had suffered a nightmare. “I didn’t want to take you in case they came looking. I figured a hospital would be the first place they checked.”

It made sense.

Wait.

No. It did not make sense. None of this made sense. Absolutely none.

“You … you killed him,” Jeonghan whispered, raising his head and staring with wide eyes at the person he’d thought could never hurt a fly. “You killed that guy right in front of me.”

Hyuk blinked at him, “Han, he was going to hurt you.”

“No, I know,” Jeonghan nodded, inhaling a shuddering breath through grating lungs. “I know and … and thank you … but … all those other people … I saw the bodies, Hyuk. I saw what you did and …”

“Listen to me,” Hyuk interrupted, shuffling forwards and taking hold of Jeonghan’s hands. “I did what I had to do to get you back. I’m … I’m not proud of it but I don’t regret it either. I found you, didn’t I? I saved you.”

Jeonghan couldn’t find the words he needed. What Hyuk was saying was absolutely right but, at the same time, it felt so wrong. He hadn’t wanted to be saved from Seungcheol. He’d wanted to stay with Seungcheol.

And Joshua … What had happened to Joshua?

“You’re in shock,” Hyuk said, cupping the back of Jeonghan’s head and helping him lie down against the pillows. “And you have a concussion. You should rest.”

Jeonghan just nodded, his eyes zipping around the room for the first time since he’d woken up. It looked like Hyuk had brought him to some kind of cheap motel with two beds, a kitchen table and a bathroom.

It felt a little more humane than his setup back in the bunker but Jeonghan didn’t know what to make of that. Jeonghan didn’t know what to make of anything anymore.

He allowed his lids to flutter closed, allowed Hyuk to comb his hair out of his eyes, allowed sleep to drift into the corners of his mind until he was hovering in that limbo between consciousness and not.

The last thing he felt was Hyuk’s hand around his and the last thing he heard was Hyuk’s voice whispering comforts from beside him.

“I found you. You’re safe now. I have you. I got you back. I found you. You’re safe now.”

\------------------

Seungcheol didn’t have very many fears. Fear wasn’t tolerated where he was from.

Anything and everything that had scared him growing up was eradicated instantly. Childlike hatreds of spiders and rats had him locked up in the basement until he made friends with them. There was no room to be afraid of guns and knives when he was using them to protect himself.

And death? He’d come so close on so many occasions that the idea of dying was almost laughable.

Choi Seungcheol didn’t know fear. It was an emotion he hadn’t been allowed to feel over the course of his entire life, which was why it was so excruciatingly difficult to come to terms with its appearance now.

_“SOS!”_

A crackling, distorted voice came sputtering through the speakers of the radio that sat on the table next to Jihoon, and Seungcheol felt his stomach lurching.

He leapt to his feet but Junhui was faster, snatching up the device and turning the volume up to its fullest so they could all hear the panicked shouting from the other end of the line.

_“SOS! We need --!”_

They had barely enough time to identify the owner as Joshua before the message was cut short and the feed went dead, nothing but fuzzy static taking its place and leaving each of them frozen to the spot with ice cold dread seeping through every pore of their bodies.

“No …” Seungcheol felt the word literally fall from his lips.

What was happening? No, that was a stupid question. He knew exactly what was happening. How could it be happening? That was even more idiotic. How could he have been so irresponsible? How could he have let them go?

“NO!”

He should be giving orders. He should be telling Jihoon to track Joshua’s phone, to start searching CCTV cameras, to find him, find them, but his tongue wasn’t cooperating with what his mind knew it should be doing.

Luckily, he didn’t have to say a word.

Jihoon’s fingers were already furiously working at the keyboard, Minghao’s sword was strapped to his back and the various clicks and clatters of guns being loaded peppered the murderous silence they had fallen into.

Their people had been attacked. Somebody was going to die tonight.

Seungcheol’s father’s words were ringing in his head, _“Fear isn’t real. It’s a small man with a large shadow. What’s to fear in fear?”_

The sentiment had seemed cryptic when he’d first heard it as a child and he’d spent many nights trying to decipher the meaning but, as his training raged on, that meaning had become more than clear.

He took a deep breath, kicked that small man into the gutter and readied himself to receive Joshua’s last known location from Jihoon.

\---------------

The night felt especially dark. The sun would rise in just a few hours but, for now, it felt especially dark. 

The air was no longer light and crisp but heavy and ominous instead as Seungcheol dismounted from the van with Minghao and Junhui right behind him.

“They aren’t here,” Junhui stated almost immediately.

He spoke like he already knew it to be true and Seungcheol had never been one to question Junhui’s infamously accurate intuition but he was going to need more than that to prove to himself that his best friend and his – he didn’t even know what to call him – weren’t bleeding out in a gutter somewhere.

“Search the area,” he growled, his gun already out and his finger itching to twitch.

Neither of them questioned him. Wonwoo and Mingyu were a street over, combing the alleyways, searching every place Joshua and Jeonghan could have slinked off to in their bid for safety, but so far they had nothing. 

The roads were completely empty at this hour, and silent, too, but for the shuffle of their boots through the snow. Every establishment in the vicinity was locked up tight and dark through the windows.

There was nothing to alert anyone to the possible carnage that had occurred.

“S.Coups,” Junhui called from across the street. “There’s nothing here.”

But there had to be something. This was the last location they had. He’d settle for broken bones, bullet holes, brain damage, anything, so long as his people were alive. They needed to find them alive.

“Coups, honestly …”

“Coups!” came Minghao’s sharp snap from where he was squatting at the mouth of an alleyway to their left, drawing both his allies in less than a heartbeat. 

There was blood. More blood than a human could survive losing. Blood on the walls, on the concrete. Splashes, splatters, smears, footprints. All bloody.

“Look.”

Seungcheol tore his eyes away from the butchery to see Junhui lifting what was left of Joshua’s radio by the antenna. The device was shattered, smashed to plastic pieces and held together by nothing more than thin wires, a spring and a single screw. 

It was looking worse and worse by the minute and Seungcheol had to remind himself to breathe against the building tightness in his chest as he ventured further into the alley, sweeping the beam of his flashlight across the ground until it illuminated a particularly large splodge of red.

He turned away.

This couldn’t be happening. He couldn’t have let this happen.

He didn’t know what to do with these feelings. He’d never felt helpless. It wasn’t in his nature. But his brain wasn’t cooperating with his mind. 

He knew exactly what he was supposed to be doing but he just couldn’t push past the loss and guilt and absolute hopelessness bubbling up to his heart.

There was a knife tossed to one side, a gun on the other that he recognised as the piece he’d lent to Jeonghan, and then his arching line of light landed on the body slumped against the wall.

Seungcheol’s head snapped in the opposite direction, the unfamiliar sensation of tears instantly springing to his eyes. He needed to identify who it was. He needed to check if it was Joshua or if it was Jeonghan but he couldn’t.

Why the fuck couldn’t he look?

“Jun!” he shouted, breaths coming out in harsh gasps.

He felt as if he was going to throw up at any moment. Was this what fear really was? This weakness. This horrible, horrible sense of weakness.

“There’s a body,” he croaked once he felt Junhui’s presence at his side.

The boy made a soft tutting sound and stooped, steady hands reaching out to check whether the corpse at their feet was friend or foe. Seungcheol had no idea how he could possibly tell in the dark but barely a moment later, they got their answer.

“It’s not Shua. Not Han either.”

Seungcheol released the breath that had steadily been growing stale in his lungs and turned his flashlight on the body.

The man’s throat had been slashed clean through the spine. He hadn’t stood the slightest chance against whoever had done it. 

Jeonghan wasn’t experienced enough to make a move like that and Joshua always favoured a gun over a knife when he could. 

“Someone else was here,” he announced as the realisation came to him. “Get Woozi back on it. We need to find them now. We don’t know who the fuck took them or what they’re going to do now they have them.” 

“At least one of them got away,” Minghao piped up from further down the alley and Seungcheol could just about make out the set of bloody footprints travelling deeper into the darkness, accompanied by the dribble of scarlet that could only come from a leaking wound.

“Fuck …” Seungcheol spat, eyes burning as he returned to the parked van and braced his hands against the sides, taking a couple of controlled breaths.

Joshua was his best friend. Jeonghan was the person he’d promised to protect. This had happened because he’d let them go and now they could be dead or worse.

Because ‘worse’ was a very real possibility in this life.

“Let’s move out!” he shouted, straightening up and addressing the other two. “Engage all sectors, get Seungkwan up, call Hoshi, just … just fucking find them!”

\-------------------

When Jeonghan awoke for the second time, the pain in his head had been reduced to the point where it was bearable and there was a glass of water on the bedside table that he made a grab for at once.

It felt like liquid heaven gliding down his throat and, for half a minute, he was okay. For half a minute, he wasn’t in danger. For half a minute, there wasn’t a bloodthirsty gang out to get him. For half a minute, he was what he’d been before.

But then it all came back. Seungcheol, Joshua, Sungjong, the Mins, Hyuk and Hansol and Chan and Shownu and it was all too much too fast.

He was still in that motel room but now the sun was starting to peek through the shutters, bathing the carpet in a pale golden glow, and Hyuk was curled up on the opposite bed with his eyes closed and his arms hugging a pillow to his chest.

He looked so innocent. He looked like the person Jeonghan remembered. The person who hadn’t butchered his own people.

Hyuk was a Min. So how had he come to Seoul? How had he escaped that life and gone to medical school? Had he run away? Had he gone rogue? Or had he grown up completely separate from all of that only to go running straight back when he realised his friend was missing.

Jeonghan couldn’t imagine what it had been like for him to come home from Jeju and find his apartment burnt to the ground. 

He’d said everyone thought Jeonghan was dead. Did that include his parents? Had they given up on him already?

He couldn’t stay here.

No matter how safe it was and how good it felt to be back with Hyuk, he couldn’t stay here. He had to get back to the bunker. He had to tell Seungcheol that somebody had taken Joshua. He couldn’t leave him again.

“I’m sorry,” he whispered as he slithered off the bed and pulled on his boots. “I’m sorry, Hyuk. I’m so sorry.”

He would come back. Probably. Maybe. Or maybe not. He didn’t know. But one thing was for certain, he had to help Seungcheol save Joshua. Or at least recover Joshua’s body.

Nobody deserved to stay, rotting, in a darkened alleyway until someone eventually found them and tossed them in the ground. 

He didn’t know where he was. He didn’t know which motel Hyuk had brought him to but that didn’t matter. All he had to do was find his way back to the main street and then he could locate the bunker from there.

So long as Sungjong’s guys didn’t find him before then.

The door made a horrifically loud clicking sound as Jeonghan fumbled with the latch and his head whipped around, praying that Hyuk would just stay in the folds of unconsciousness long enough for him to escape.

“Hannie? Where you going?”

Fuck.

Jeonghan spun to see Hyuk clambering sleepily off his bed, hair tussled and face slightly swollen as he rubbed at his eyes with a closed fist, and Jeonghan felt his heart break into one billion tiny pieces.

“I have to go, Hyuk,” he pleaded. “I have to get to Cheol. They’ll be looking for me by now and I have to tell them that Shua’s in trouble."

Hyuk just blinked at him, eyes round with confusion and hurt, and Jeonghan couldn’t quite believe that this was the same guy who’d slaughtered all those people and thrown a grenade under Hansol’s car.

When he’d seen the bodies, he’d been picturing some sort of gigantic brute with scars running diagonals across his face, knuckles misshapen from years’ worth of fistfights, a chipped tooth, a bald head glistening with sweat and a tapestry of tattoos.

But this was Hyuk. And Hyuk was still just Hyuk. Small and soft and looking like he’d always done: warm and innocent and so heartbreakingly young.

Jeonghan had to resist the urge to curse, head dropping between his shoulders and hands coming up to scrub the weariness from his face before he paced across the room and flopped back down onto his bed.

Joshua could be out there right now, slowly bleeding to death, but Jeonghan wouldn’t be getting out of this motel room with any ease.

“Hyuk, I really need to leave,” he implored him, reaching forwards and entwining their hands in the space between the beds. “I promise to stay in touch or whatever but Coups needs me.”

“Coups …” Hyuk repeated in disbelief. “You mean S.Coups? As in, the youngest crime lord in Seoul? You think he cares about where you are right now, Hannie?” 

He pushed off his own mattress and then sank down on Jeonghan’s so that their thighs and shoulders were pressed together and their eyes were locked.

“He’s only keeping you around because you can prove his innocence . Right now, you’re the only thing standing between him and a Min-style execution.”

“That’s not true,” Jeonghan argued at once but, even as the words left his mouth, he realised he was wrong. “He … He does care.”

Had it all been a trick? The kiss, the confession, the touches and the comforts. Had it all been an act Seungcheol had put on to ensure Jeonghan stayed loyal long enough to clear his name? Had he really been so naïve as to have not seen that?

“Come with me, Hannie,” Hyuk begged, breaking through Jeonghan’s internal soliloquy. “We’ll leave the country. I’ll keep you safe from all of them. Do you know how many times Coups’ guys have been careless with your life? All it took was three drinks to get them to spill where they were holding you.” 

He wrapped his spindly fingers around Jeonghan’s upper arm and rested his head on his friend’s shoulder, snuggling closer and clinging tighter to solidify the truly irrefusable nature of his plea.

It had been so long since they were together that Jeonghan could almost ignore the impending doom steadily approaching from behind him. Hyuk’s promises had left him with a thickened wad of emotion clogging up his throat.

But the murders …

It seemed a bit hypocritical to be judging him for what he’d done when Jeonghan had killed a man barely even twenty-four hours previously. It had been the hardest, most terrifying thing that he’d ever done and that brought him to the million-dollar question.

“Hyuk,” he whispered softly. “How were you able to … um … kill all those people?”

Hyuk sat up, still holding onto Jeonghan’s arm and still blinking like a lost little lamb in the middle of the woods as he blurted out the words, “I’m a Min, Hannie. Surely you know that by now.”

“But … how?”

He watched as his roommate let out a long, loud sigh, releasing his hold on Jeonghan and shifting to face the opposite wall, picking at the skin around his fingernails.

“My mother was part of the Min family’s head branch. I trained alongside all the highest-ranking family members but, when my little sister was born, my father wanted a different life for us.”

His eyes were closed, his fingers were fidgeting anxiously and Jeonghan could tell he was reliving the memories of what must have been the worst years of his life.

“We snuck out in the night … We thought we’d made it. We had our whole lives planned out in Jeju. A small house, Eomma found work in a restaurant, Appa was an accountant, everything was fine … un … until …”

His eyes flew open, breaths suddenly uneven, and Jeonghan couldn’t help reaching across the space between them to take his hand and try to sooth his obvious distress.

“I was at school when he came,” Hyuk whispered. “The new head of the branch. I don’t know how he found me but he did. He didn’t say anything. I think he just wanted me to know he could find me. And … things started happening.”

Jeonghan gulped. He’d never heard any of this before.

“Appa lost his job and there were these guys harassing Eomma at work and he was just always there. Around every corner. So I confronted him and we struck a deal: I’d be one of his reps in Seoul and he’d leave my family alone. I needed a good excuse so I enrolled in med school and … you know the rest.”

So he’d been a thug this entire time? Before Jeonghan met him, when they moved in together, while they were living side by side under the same roof? He’d probably kept guns in the house. Guns and drugs and information that could have landed the both of them in prison.

Jeonghan should have been angry. He should have felt betrayed. But he wasn’t. He didn’t. Maybe, after everything that he’d seen and done, he had grown more accepting of such things.

“Thank you, Hyuk,” he said, as sincerely as he could. “Thank you for everything you’ve protected me from. I love you, but I have to go back.”

He saw the heartbreak on Hyuk’s face but he kept pushing, desperate to make him understand why he had to leave him after everything he’d done to save him.

“I have to end this. Shua is still out there and even if Coups doesn’t care about me, I know he cares about Shua. I have to help.” 

“Then I’m coming with you,” Hyuk announced without a second’s hesitation.

“You can’t. I don’t think you realise how badly you’ve fucked up. That car you blew up? There was a kid inside. His name’s Hansol. I only just saved his life. And you shot Hyunwoo. He’s a good person. If these guys find you, they won’t let you live another minute.” 

There was no fear in Hyuk’s response, just a dry chuckle of amusement, “I guess you’re right. Okay, here’s what we’ll do.”

He reached under the bed and retrieved a bulging black duffel bag, dumping it on the mattress between them and ripping it open to reveal guns, grenades and wads of cash kept together with elastic bands.

While Jeonghan was still staring, dumbstruck, he produced a cell phone and pressed it into his friend’s hand.

“Keep this,” he ordered. “And call me. For anything, everything, even if it’s just to bitch about Coups like a little girl. Please … call me, okay?”

“Okay,” Jeonghan nodded at once, throwing his arms around his roommate’s – ex roommate's neck – and squeezing tight. “Thank you. Thank you so much.”

“Note that I’m against this,” came Hyuk’s muffled reply from deep within the crook of Jeonghan’s neck and they drew apart with a shared huff of infinitesimal amusement. “Come on. I’ll take you back.”

He slung the bag over his shoulder and ushered Jeonghan out of the room, turning around and locking the door behind him before they made their steady trek out into the parking lot. 

The car was sandwiched strategically between two much larger vehicles, probably to hide it from people like Jihoon.

They almost got there. Almost.

They’d been so fucking close.

But then, without warning, Hyuk’s entire body tensed, he planted his hand between Jeonghan’s shoulder blades and shoved him onto the ground with unceremonious force.

Hissing as his palms scraped the asphalt, Jeonghan glared up at him with a retort already on his lips, but Hyuk wasn’t looking. Without a word, without any indication of what was happening, he threw a gentle yet meaningful kick and started gesturing wildly with his hand.

Jeonghan swallowed his words at once and flattened himself to the ground, wriggling underneath the adjacent car. He lay there, paralysed with apprehension, the only thing he could see being Hyuk’s feet.

Desperate to see what was going on, he shuffled forwards until a man – or maybe a boy – came into view, strutting towards Hyuk as if he owned the entire galaxy.

His face was misleading, deceptively small and slightly cat-like, not completely dissimilar to Hyuk’s. His hair was jet black and streaked with smudges of blue, emphasising the extreme colourlessness of his face. 

And his voice sent shivers down Jeonghan’s spine.

“Donghyuk,” it rumbled, and Hyuk visibly stiffened at its sound.

“Yes, sir,” he stuttered, dropping into a deep bow.

“Sir?” The man cocked his head to the side, looking a little bit like a bird. “That’s a far too formal way to address your cousin, don’t you think?”

There was no malice in his voice, not yet, but Jeonghan could feel the threat hiding just beneath the surface and, from the way Hyuk’s eyes seemed to widen, he could, too.

“And to think I paid your tuition,” the newcomer tutted as if he were an impatient mother addressing a petulant child.

And then Jeonghan saw the weapon.

“Sir … Please. Mr Min … I was just …”

“Now, now, Hyuk,” the gunman interrupted civilly. “The greatest betrayal is to lie to the brothers who have stood by your side, defending you and protecting you. You know this. And you also know that traitors pay with their lives.”

Jeonghan’s heart dropped into his stomach and he had to clap a hand over his mouth to keep himself from crying out in protest.

“Mr Min …” Hyuk whispered weakly. “Please …”

“Don’t beg, Donghyuk. It’s unbecoming of a Min.”

He lifted the gun.

Jeonghan had patched up the wounds of so many of the Mins’ victims over the past couple of weeks, always with a grimace on his face as he tried not to imagine how much pain the poor bastards must have been in before they died.

He’d dealt with the bodies, sure, but nothing – absolutely nothing – could have prepared him for witnessing the deed first hand. 

It was played out in front of him, perfectly, like some sick kind of play, and he had Shownu’s voice echoing inside his head.

_“First the knees … Bang! Bang!”_

Hyuk screamed in agony as he hit the floor, tears already streaming down his face as his knee caps were obliterated, and Jeonghan wanted more than anything to reach out and whisk him away to safety but he couldn’t move a muscle.

_“Then a double tap to the chest … Bang! Bang!”_

Different guns for each wound, just like Junhui had said.

And Hyuk wasn’t screaming anymore.

He was just lying there, flat on his back, head lolling to the side and fingers twitching towards where Jeonghan cowered, silently sobbing, beneath the car they’d been so close to escaping in.

His best friend was dying right in front of him, looking right at him, bubbles of blood bursting on his lips and breaths coming out in rattling, wheezing gasps of pure agony.

“Hyuk …” Jeonghan whimpered from behind his own fingers.

It went unheard over the final shot, delivered to the spot directly between Hyuk’s eyes.


	14. One Of The Worst

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Neither of us expected Hyuk to make as big an impact as he did. It was very entertaining for both of us. Stay safe everybody!

When somebody was gone, just vanished into thin air, the mind tended to play tricks. 

It conjured up the most gruesome scenarios of what could be happening to them at that very moment, depicting the worst injuries, detailing the most terrible pain.

Seungcheol tried to keep his head clear so he could give the orders that would lead them to Joshua and Jeonghan but the images were flashing in front of his eyes without mercy or relent.

If it was Sungjong then Jeonghan would already be dead and Joshua would probably be undergoing rigorous torture in the hope that he would give up information about Seungcheol. 

If it was this Hyuk guy then Joshua would be the one without a heartbeat and Jeonghan would be gone for good.

And if it was the Mins … Seungcheol didn’t even want to think about what they would do.

He’d let them go out there. He’d thought that Joshua was strong enough to protect them both but there was only so much one person could do against however many had attacked them. 

He had driven his people into the arms of whoever had snatched them.

Whatever happened next was his fault.

“We’re going to find them,” Minghao growled from the back seat of the van, reaching forwards and giving Seungcheol’s shoulder a purposeful squeeze. “We will. We’ll find them.”

Seungcheol didn’t answer. He was afraid that if he uttered a word, his voice would break and he would reveal just how terrified he was so he kept his sole focus on the tablet in his hands, tracing the map with his finger and trying to figure out where his guys could have run off to.

Joshua’s SOS call had only come in roughly three hours ago. They had to still be in the area and that meant they had a very short window of time in which to find them. Any longer than that and their chances would shrink dramatically.

The radio on the dashboard gave a crackle in brief warning before Mingyu’s voice was booming through the vehicle.

“Coups, we have reported gunfire! Five shots! Ramford Motel!”

Seungcheol’s heart did a backflip in his chest at the realisation of what that could mean. Five gunshots. The Mins’ signature included five bullet wounds. This close to Joshua and Jeonghan’s abduction, it was too much of a coincidence.

“Junhui …” Seungcheol started, but Junhui’s foot was already pressing the accelerator into the floor.

The sky was starting to lighten, a watercolour gradient fading slowly from black to navy to blue as the sun prepared for its gradual ascent into view, and Seungcheol could only hope that there weren’t enough people awake to draw a crowd.

If it really was the Mins, they couldn’t afford spectators. People would die. Innocent people. And that wasn’t the kind of person Seungcheol wanted to be.

They reached the motel in less than two minutes thanks to Junhui’s very illegal driving and before the engine even cut off, Seungcheol was out of the car. He hit the ground running, gun clutched in his hand in case he needed it, searching for any sign of his guys.

He saw Wonwoo first. He had his back to him but his knife hung limply at his side and his shoulders sagged ever so slightly. His head was bowed, too, as though trying to show respect. It was a terrifying sight.

Seungcheol quickened his pace, grabbing Wonwoo’s elbow to alert him of his presence before he took in the scene that was causing so much distress.

Mingyu was crouching on the ground, his elbows resting on his knees and his gun lying discarded at his feet. His eyebrows were drawn together in the centre of his forehead and his face bore the traces of sympathy, an emotion he’d never been very good with.

But it was the other two people crammed into that tiny space between the parked cars that had Seungcheol stumbling forwards and dropping to his knees, words failing him just when he needed them most.

Jeonghan sat slumped against one of the wheels, his hands drenched in blood and scarlet smudges smeared over his face, and the dead boy whose head was cradled in his lap could only be Kim Donghyuk.

It had definitely been the Mins. The knees were gone, the chest was bloody, the brains were splattered over the concrete. Hyuk’s own family had ended his life and, from the looks of it, Jeonghan had seen it all.

“Han,” Seungcheol started, receiving nothing but a blank face and glassy eyes in return. “Han, baby, I’m so sorry.”

Still nothing. Jeonghan wasn’t speaking, he wasn’t seeing, he wasn’t doing anything other than absently carding his fingers through Hyuk’s bloodstained hair as if he was trying to comfort the boy whose eyes were open yet would never again look upon the world.

“Han,” Seungcheol tried again. “I’m sorry. I really, really am. But we have to go. We can’t stay here.”

Someone else would have heard the gunshots. The police would be on their way and they had to be long gone before then. There couldn’t be any chance of this murder being traced back to them.

Seungcheol glanced up and caught Mingyu’s eye. His expression was solemn, mouth stretched into a grim line. He wasn’t good at feeling emotions. They’d been beaten out of him far too many times to ever risk coming back.

In the distance, a siren started to wail, signalling that they were out of time. They couldn’t wait for Jeonghan to come around by himself or they would all be arrested.

Seungcheol gave Mingyu the nod and they both moved forwards, acting as quickly and yet as gently as they could with the sensitive nature of the situation.

Mingyu took Hyuk’s body and carefully levered it out of Jeonghan’s lap while Seungcheol wrapped his arms around the doctor’s chest and heaved him to his feet. Jeonghan tried to fight at first but he didn’t have the strength.

“Go. We’ll keep searching for Shua,” Wonwoo grunted, and Seungcheol didn’t need to be told twice.

Jeonghan’s knees were weak, barely capable of taking his weight, and his eyes were still glazed but, behind the shock that had come with watching his best friend die, he seemed to understand the need to disappear.

Seungcheol had to practically lift him into the van, muttering a dangerously low, “drive”, that had Junhui steering them out of the parking lot before Minghao had even managed to get the door closed.

Only then did the leader take the time to assess the damage.

Jeonghan was drenched – absolutely drenched – in blood but the only wound Seungcheol could find was a small gash at the back of his head that had already been cleaned and treated. 

His face was still bruised from his run-in with the captive he'd killed but, other than that, he seemed unharmed.

Physically, at least.

“Han,” Seungcheol murmured, taking his face in his hands and stroking the pads of his thumbs over the tear tracks on his cheeks. “Han, I know you’re hurting right now but I need you to talk to me. I need you to tell me what happened.”

Joshua was still out there.

“There were three of them,” Jeonghan whispered, still unblinking, still unmoving. “I couldn’t see their faces. They wore masks.”

“Okay,” Seungcheol nodded, glancing over at Minghao in the passenger seat and giving him a silent order to relay any information Jeonghan gave them straight to Jihoon. “And what happened when they caught up to you?”

“I shot one. In the knee. He went down. I don’t know what happened to him.”

The timing was poor but Seungcheol felt the beginnings of pride swelling in his gut. Hitting a target in a shooting range was one thing. Taking down an enemy in the field was another.

“And Shua?” he asked urgently. “What happened to Shua?”

“He got shot.”

No. No, no, no, no, no. He couldn’t have. He … He couldn’t have.

“Where?” Seungcheol croaked, his voice surprisingly steady considering how fast the panic was rising. “Where did he get shot? In … In the chest? The head?”

He needed to know if Joshua had a chance. If he’d managed to crawl away. If he’d managed to survive or if he’d died in that alleyway and been dumped in some river to hide his body from the police.

“In the leg.”

Okay. Okay. That was … That was okay. Joshua was tough. One of the toughest people Seungcheol had ever met. He could run on an injured leg. He could still shoot, he could still fight. There was still hope.

“I think they took him,” Jeonghan breathed without moving his eyes from the back of Junhui’s seat. “Hy … Hyuk … he killed one of them. Slit his throat. I tried to fight him. I tried to … I tried to get to Shua but … Hyuk knocked me out. I … I’m sorry …”

Seungcheol couldn’t breathe properly. Minghao was staring at him with wide eyes from the passenger seat, Junhui was watching him through the rear-view mirror, Jeonghan was borderline catatonic and Seungcheol couldn’t breathe properly.

Somebody had Joshua. He didn’t know who, he didn’t know why, but somebody had him and he was hurt. He’d been shot. He could already be dead.

“I’m sorry …” Jeonghan repeated like some broken record. “I couldn’t save him. I’m sorry.”

“The8,” Seungcheol choked, clearing his throat to try and stabilise his vocal cords. “Did you get all of that?”

“Yes.”

“Send it to Woozi and then get a message to Wonwoo and Mingyu. They’re not going to find Shua at that motel. I need everybody doing everything they can, okay? I need Seungkwan bugging the tables at his club, I need Hoshi reaching out to everyone he knows, I need … I … I need …”

I need Joshua. That’s what he wanted to say. I need Joshua because I don’t remember a time when I didn’t have him by my side and now that he’s gone, I don’t know how long I can keep up appearances and convince everybody that I’m the leader they need me to be.

“Contact everybody. Anybody. Anyone who’s ever owed us a favour, anyone we’ve ever worked with. Put Shua’s description out there but don’t say anything about who he is. If the people who have him find out …”

He couldn’t finish the sentence but the expression on Minghao’s face told him he didn’t need to. They understood the threat.

Joshua was his right hand man. His second in command. His best friend and closest confidante. Joshua knew everything he knew. Drug trade routes, double agents, confidential information about the Mins and all the other gangs they’d ever worked alongside.

Whoever had taken him might not know that. They might just think they’d swiped some random guy from a random organisation. But if they found out who he was and what he knew, they would tear him to pieces because that’s what it would take to get him to talk.

“I’m sorry …” Jeonghan whispered yet again, and Seungcheol couldn’t take it anymore.

“Han,” he gasped, seizing both Jeonghan’s hands and squeezing too tightly than could be healthy for his circulation. “It is not your fault, okay? You’ve been through enough tonight. It is not your fault.”

He didn’t add the words, “it’s mine”, because none of these people needed to know that. They couldn’t lose faith in him now. They had to be stronger than they’d ever been before if they were going to stand a chance of getting Joshua back. 

If he revealed his part in all of this then they would turn on him in a heartbeat.

He should be comforting Jeonghan, taking him in his arms and stroking his hair and telling him that it was okay to cry for the loss of his friend.

But Joshua was gone.

And that meant somebody had to pay. 

The rest of the ride passed in silence and, as seconds dragged into minutes, Seungcheol could feel his fear turning to anger and his anger turning to hatred and by the time Junhui pulled up in the bunker’s garage, he was ready to commit murder.

Seokmin came sprinting up to the van and, as soon as his feet were firmly planted on the floor, threw his arms around Jeonghan’s neck and clung to him like a monkey to its mother.

“Thank God … Thank God … Thank God …”

The sight of the doctor slowly reaching up to return to the embrace as his walls finally shattered and he broke down in fits of hysterical tears was one of the most soul-shattering things Seungcheol had ever witnessed but he couldn’t allow himself to give into his urges to wrap that boy up in a blanket and kiss the pain away.

He had to be strong right now. He had to be the S.Coups that everybody feared because then and only then would his mind have the clarity it required to do what needed to be done.

“Seokmin,” he called out, giving Jeonghan’s hair a gentle stroke as Seokmin caught his eye from over the sobbing boy’s shoulder. “Take him to the med bay and give him something to help him sleep.”

“Got it.”

Minghao and Junhui were already on their way to Jihoon’s control room as Seokmin looped an arm around Jeonghan’s waist and steered him carefully in the direction of warmth and drugs and a bed he could lie down on.

“Cheol …” he cried out pitifully, throwing a watery-eyed stare over his shoulder and reaching out a trembling hand. “Cheol …”

Seungcheol took it, squeezed it, pressed his lips into his baby’s forehead and whispered the words, “I’ll come back”, before turning on his heel and tearing up the distance between him and the rest of his team.

They were all gathered, just as he’d hoped, in the control room, some of them pacing back and forth, some of them standing stock still with their eyes fixated on nothing, some of them with their face in their hands, some of them leaning over Jihoon’s shoulder to read whatever he was bringing up on his computer screen.

Joshua’s abduction was singularly one of the worst things that could have happened at a time like this.

Seungcheol had barely crossed the threshold when all eyes were instantly on him, questions tumbling from half a dozen mouths and weapons already in hand in case they needed to be used on the nearest person.

“What the fuck happened?”

“Did you really get the doctor?”

“Where’s Shua?”

“Is Jeonghan okay?”

“Do you know who did it?”

“Shut up!” Seungcheol yelled, and they all fell silent at once, giving him the time he needed to gather his thoughts. “Yes, we got Jeonghan. No, we didn’t get Shua. No, we don’t know who’s behind this yet but …”

“Well, it’s obvious, isn’t it?” Seungkwan snapped, looking around at all the expectant faces as though he expected them to agree with him on the spot. “This has Sungjong written all over it.”

He had a point. If it was the Mins then Joshua’s body would have already turned up by now.

“Listen,” he commanded. “We don’t know anything for sure yet so I know this just got personal but I need all of you to keep it together. We can't have anyone going rogue and causing more trouble than we’re already in.”

He looked directly at Hansol as he said it. Hansol who was standing in the corner, burned body covered by his clothing, fists bunched at his side and eyes narrowed in the ferocity that only ever surfaced when a loved one was in danger.

“We have to be smart about this,” Seungcheol continued even though every instinct was screaming at him to grab a gun, break into Sungjong’s base and shoot anything that moved. 

“Shua wasn’t killed. He was abducted. That means these people want something and they’re going to keep him alive until they get it. That gives us time and we can’t afford to waste it so I want everyone to call in their teams."

The words flowed from his mouth, the result of years' worth of experience and they listened just like they always did. Just like he needed them to do. 

"Junhui, tell Charles to pull his dealers off the streets. We can't afford to have them in the open right now. Seungkwan, Soonyoung, I need the two of you together on this. Wonwoo, your unit is the best underground. Get anything you can find."

There was a smattering of ‘yes, sirs’ and nods of understanding but Seungcheol could see the tension in every posture and the fury on every face. 

Up until now, they had been fighting a dangerous battle but with one of their own in the middle of it all, the stakes had just been raised.

“I know you’re angry,” Seungcheol ground out. “I am, too. Trust me, I want to tear these motherfuckers apart, and I promise you that we will. But not until we have Shua back. So, we lay low, we search and we wait. If there’s going to be a ransom demand, it will come soon and we need to be ready with our response so I …”

“It’ll be Jeonghan.”

Seungcheol’s words froze in his throat and he felt his heart skip a momentary beat. Interruption was not something he usually tolerated within his ranks and, given their situation, he’d decided to let it slide with Seungkwan, but twice in a row was not acceptable.

He told himself it had nothing to do with the fact that it was Jeonghan’s name on Hansol’s lips, but he wasn’t sure if that was the truth anymore.

“What did you say?” he growled.

On any other day, Hansol would have stayed silent and listened to his orders like they'd taught him to when he first joined them, but not today. 

The kid had always had a mouth on him. It was one of the reasons no foster family had ever agreed to take him on for longer than six weeks. He would spit insults and death threats, steal cars, get drunk and crash them into trees.

He was a loose cannon. He always had been. Not even a two-year sentence in a juvenile detention centre had knocked that out of him. 

He’d been born with a one-way ticket to prison in his hand and, if it wasn’t for Joshua, he would probably have been stabbed with a sharpened toothbrush handle in the county jail showers.

Joshua had been the one to swoop in and save the kid when he thought trying to blow up a bank was a good idea. Joshua had been the one to see past the war wounds and protective walls into the potential that lay inside.

Joshua had been the one to give Hansol a second chance at life and, as a result, Hansol worshipped the very ground he walked on. Hansol would probably detonate the entire country if he thought it would help the person who’d saved his backside too many times to count.

And that was the person Seungcheol saw through that kid’s eyes at this very moment.

“I said,” Hansol hissed, throwing off Soonyoung’s restraining hand as he marched forwards until his and Seungcheol’s noses were just a few inches apart. “That if there’s going to be a trade, it’ll be Shua for Jeonghan. You know it, I know it, everybody here fucking knows it!”

“Hansol,” Seungcheol warned. “Take a step back.”

“Or what?”

Seungcheol couldn’t quite believe what he was seeing. Hansol was more protective of Joshua than he’d ever been of anybody in his life but the respect he had – or the respect Seungcheol had thought he had – for his leader was stronger than anything.

“Or I’ll lock you in the interrogation room with Junhui until you learn some fucking respect!” 

The slight widening of Hansol’s eyes was the only indication of uncertainty, but the kid wouldn't back down.

Seungcheol didn't want to have to resort to that. Junhui may do more harm than good but a leader could not be disrespected at a time like this when he already questioned his own ability to lead these kids.

“Are you telling me …” Hansol spat, his voice dangerously low and completely void of fear. “That if Sungjong calls right now and tells you that he’ll exchange Joshua, your best friend, for Jeonghan, this rando that you’ve known for five fucking minutes, you’ll say ‘no’?”

Seungcheol didn’t know what he would say. And that … That truly terrified him.

“Hansol, I’m warning you,” he said instead. “I know Shua’s the most important person in your life but you cannot be acting like this right now. Jeonghan saved your ass and …”

“So did Shua!” Hansol roared, flecks of spittle flying off the tip of his tongue and hitting Seungcheol in the face. “He saved yours, too! And yours! And yours! And yours!”

He spun on the spot, pointing at every person present in the room who was watching the scene unfold in front of them without saying a word.

“How can you be so fucking selfish? You’d let your best friend get tortured and murdered just so that you could fuck that pretty doctor?”

There was absolute silence.

Even Jihoon had stopped typing.

And Seungcheol had managed to school his expression into that of a blank slate’s, but, inside his head, a thousand thoughts were battling for dominance all at once.

He wanted to punch Hansol’s face in. For suggesting that he didn’t care about Joshua’s life. For talking about Jeonghan like that. For disrespecting and humiliating him in front of his own men.

But he couldn’t because he knew exactly where Hansol was coming from. The kid was hurting. He was scared and he wanted his hyung back and that was the only reason why he was acting out.

It wasn’t because he hated Seungcheol. It wasn’t because he hated Jeonghan. He was just scared. That’s what it was. Right? And he was the only one who felt that way. Right? None of the others would willingly throw Jeonghan to the wolves to save Joshua.

Right?

They had policies about such things, didn't they?

“Hansol,” Junhui interjected, stepping forwards and resting a restraining hand on Hansol’s shoulder when both he and Seungcheol continued to glare at each other. “Take a walk. Now.”

For a moment, it didn’t look like his words had even registered, but then Hansol threw off his hand, spat onto the floor at Seungcheol’s feet and stormed from the room, slamming the door so violently that the monitors rattled.

“Cheol,” Jihoon spoke up, incredibly cautious and tentative, as though he was expecting his leader to just explode right there and then.

“What?” Seungcheol snapped, giving himself a shake and marching over to the boy’s computer. “What have you got?”

His eyes landed on the screen and his whole world came crashing down on top of him.

“It’s a video,” Jihoon choked. “From Sungjong.”

This couldn’t be happening. This couldn’t be happening. This couldn’t be happening. 

The person in front of him – beaten black and bloody, arms and legs tied to a chair with what looked like barbed wire, a strip of tape over his mouth – couldn’t be Joshua.

His throat closed up.

He barely got the words out.

“Play it.”


	15. Someone To Beg For

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TRIGGER WARNING!!!!!  
> This chapter contains potentially triggering content such as mentions of self-harm so, if you know this will upset you, please do not read. Thank you and stay safe xx

Joshua looked barely conscious.

One of his eyes was so bruised and swollen that it wouldn’t even open and the entire left side of his face was drenched with blood, some still oozing from the three-inch long gash just below his hairline.

His nose was broken and, as Seungcheol forced himself to keep watching, he realised that his wrists and ankles weren’t the only body parts secured with barbed wire.

A collar of steel spikes was wound around his throat, individual droplets of blood dribbling over his collarbones with every gasp of his chest. 

It was classic Sungjong. Even when he wasn’t actively being tortured, so long as he was breathing, the metal spines would keep digging into his skin.

They’d taken his shoes and his shirt had been ripped open to reveal clearly broken ribs and a whole tapestry of purple bruising splattered across his chest and abdomen.

The man standing behind him was gripping a handful of his hair, keeping his head wrenched backwards so the camera could see just how much damage had been done to his face and his fingers were curled around the ends of the armrests, as though trying to find something to ground himself.

“Motherfuckers …” Minghao muttered.

Seungcheol was just glad that Hansol had left the room.

A second man strolled casually into the shot, twirling a knife between his fingers, and Joshua’s eyes – _eye_ – followed its every movement, his nostrils flaring and his shoulders heaving as his breathing picked up.

“Chan, look away!” Seungcheol shouted just as the blade came down on Joshua’s thigh.

He couldn’t stop watching and therefore he could only hope that somebody had possessed the sense to cover Chan’s eyes. And preferably his ears, too.

Joshua was trying so hard not to scream, not to give his abusers that satisfaction, but the way his fingernails were clawing at the wooden armrests and the way his chest was spasming with strangled breaths revealed just how much pain he was in.

The knife burrowed deeper, its handler seemingly taking pleasure in wiggling the blade around in the muscle of Joshua’s thigh as the victim struggled against his barbed restraints and the fingers that were still curled in his hair.

 _Stop,_ Seungcheol found himself wishing. _Just stop. We get the point. Please. We get the point. Just stop and tell us what you want._

Joshua let his first scream slip, a strangled sound muffled by the tape slapped over his mouth, and Seungcheol decided then and there that these people were going to suffer before they died.

“Got it!” the man with the knife crowed in triumph, wrenching it out and holding up something pinned between his thumb and forefinger. “Tricky little bugger that was.”

It was a bullet. They’d just pulled a bullet from his leg.

Joshua’s brow was knotted, one good eye fluttering closed, barbed collar cutting deeper into his throat as he gasped for air, sweat mingling with the blood on his face and trickling down his bare chest.

The knifeman straightened up and gave his captive an affectionate pat on the cheek that had Seungcheol’s blood boiling. 

There were already curses on the tip of his tongue but he didn’t have time to utter them before the bastard was striding towards the camera and crouching down, concealing Joshua from view.

He was instantly recognisable.

Sungjong.

“Coups!” he cheered, spreading his hands in a gesture that would have been welcoming and comical if it weren’t for the scarlet smears on his palms. “It’s been a long time, hasn’t it? I heard you got yourself into a bit of trouble.”

He tutted, shaking his head as he did so.

“Murdering a Min … That’s naughty, Coups. Very naughty. Good luck getting yourself out of that one.”

Seungcheol actually growled. No words, no hidden meaning. He just growled.

Not only had Sungjong sent his men to try and kill him, executed a Min on his turf and then framed him for it, he’d also abducted his friend and was taunting him with the knowledge that he could do whatever he wanted to him.

“But let’s get down to business, shall we?”

Sungjong shifted to the side, once again giving them a clear view of Joshua’s bloodied body before he moved back into his original position and jovially clapped his hands together.

“It seems I have something that belongs to you and I can imagine you want it back, no?”

Joshua was not an ‘it’. He was a person. A person worth a billion copies of this bastard.

“I’ll make it simple,” Sungjong smirked. “Hand over Yoon Jeonghan and you can have your man. No foul play, no catches, no hidden agendas. You give me the doctor and everybody goes home happy.”

Never. Never in a billion years. He couldn’t. He wouldn’t give up Jeonghan.

“You know, Coups,” Sungjong continued to mutter, holding up his knife and running his finger tauntingly over the blade. “It’s actually possible to die from pain. The heart reaches a point where it can no longer handle the indescribable agony coursing through the body and it just … gives out.”

He stared straight down the camera and winked.

“I’ve heard that the skin beneath the fingernails is the perfect pin cushion. Can’t wait to try it out.”

He leaned forwards and, just for a moment, that sadistic smirk was gone from his face.

“You have twenty-four hours.”

The video ended. 

Seungcheol took a single second to process everything that had just happened before he erupted, hurling Jihoon's coffee cup across the room and screaming at the top of his lungs. 

"FUCK!" 

\------------------

Jeonghan wished, not for the first time, there was a button he could press that would just erase his existence from the face of the Earth. Even if it was only for a little while. He needed to disappear, vanish, vaporise. Poof … Gone.

He’d spent thousands of nights pouring over texts on the human body back in his med school days and it was then that he had truly come to terms with his mortality.

Humans were at the very top of the food chain, the ultimate apex predators, but they were inordinately frail creatures. Constructed from a flimsy skeleton that was glued together with squishy blobs of muscle and tendons, and confined within a papery tarp of skin.

One well-placed hit and voila … brain damage.

A single misplaced step and bam … a broken bone.

A tad too much pressure and shazam … the heart stopped beating.

Frail. His existence was frail and getting frailer yet.

He remembered a time, years and years previously, when he wanted to try cutting. He had somehow managed to convince himself that it was for science, that he wanted to see how the muscles worked beneath his skin, but he’d never mustered up the courage to start.

He wished, more than anything, that he had the will to do it now. He needed something to do besides lie here in this bed and wallow in his own pit of despair and misery, but he wasn’t sure he even had the energy to stand. 

There was no telling how long he’d stayed, curled up on his side with tears flowing freely over the bridge of his nose to soak into the pillows beneath his head. Seokmin had put them there but Jeonghan didn’t deserve the comfort.

His mind was tormenting him, taking him back to the day when this entire horror show had started and forcing him to ask himself what he could have done differently.

Maybe if he hadn’t made that sandwich, he wouldn’t have been late for work. If he hadn’t been late for work, he would have left his car in the staff parking lot. If he’d left his car in the staff parking lot, he wouldn’t have seen that man get shot. If he hadn’t seen that man get shot, he would never have been taken.

And if he’d never been taken, Hyuk … Hyuk wouldn’t have come after him and Hyuk would still be alive now and Jeonghan would have stayed blissfully unaware that his best and only friend was a criminal.

Criminal.

It was such a strange word. If repeated enough times, it completely lost its meaning. Criminal, criminal, criminal. They were all criminals now, he supposed.

Seungcheol with his soothing voice and gentle chuckles, soft touches and fierce loyalty and Hyuk with his dimpled cheeks and big brown eyes, easy smiles and free hugs and that man … the man who’d killed him … with the smooth pale skin and the felinity in the eyes.

All of them. Criminals. 

Did that make Jeonghan a criminal, too? He’d committed a crime. A horrible one. He’d left Joshua in the hands of those people. If he’d been stronger, if he’d fought harder against Hyuk, he may have been able to stop this.

He should ask his parents if that was an imprisonable offence.

“I’m getting tired of scraping you off the floor, Hannie,” came Junhui’s voice from the doorway.

It held no real anger but Jeonghan tightened his arms around himself anyway, burying his snot-stained face in the pillow and hiccupping pathetically.

“Oh, Han …” Junhui sighed, and then there was a hand on Jeonghan’s back, rubbing smooth circles between his shoulder blades. “You’re okay, buddy.”

But he just cried harder, maybe hard enough to suffocate himself. But, alas, that was one way the human body refused to fail. 

“Hannie,” Junhui coaxed, receiving only soggy sniffles in response. “Look at me.”

Jeonghan wished he could. He wished he could break down his walls and let Junhui comfort him in his own quirky way. 

He wanted to be dragged off this bed with an arm slung casually over his shoulder and steered to the kitchen, forced to listen to cheesy metaphors and inspirational garbles. He was even willing to take the outlandish back stories.

But he didn’t deserve that sort of kindness.

He didn’t deserve any of it.

The erratic pace of his pulse alerted him to the approaching panic attack before it truly struck and the very last thing he wanted was for Junhui to see him in that state. Not again. He needed to be alone. Right now.

Without giving his companion any kind of warning, he bolted up from the bed and staggered straight to the bathroom, legs disastrously unsteady from the heavy sleep medication Seokmin had prescribed on Seungcheol’s orders.

He slammed the door shut with a bit more force than he’d intended, blatantly ignoring Junhui’s shout of, “don’t lock it!” as he drew the bolt across with a resounding click.

Immediately, there was the soft rap of knuckles on the other side of the wood, slowly increasing in intensity the longer their call went unanswered, but Jeonghan blocked it all out the moment he scooped up the pair of scissors on the shelf.

They were sharp.

His hands trembled but that was okay. He just needed … he needed … he didn’t quite know what he needed but he knew he needed it and he needed it right fucking now before the panic hit breaking point and he passed out from lack of oxygen.

Junhui was still pummelling the door and demanding entry but Jeonghan had eyes only for the twin silver blades he clutched in his hand.

He just … needed …

He closed his eyes, raised the scissors and began to cut.

\--------------------

Seungcheol didn’t say goodbye. That would be far too difficult. He couldn’t listen to the protests and he couldn’t look at the widened eyes and he couldn’t risk letting them talk him out of doing what he was about to do.

In an ideal world, he would have held Jeonghan in his arms one last time, kissed him on the forehead and told him that everything was going to be okay.

He would have taken Hansol by the shoulders, looked him right in the eye and promised that he would bring Joshua home to him.

He would have pulled Junhui to the side, away from all the others, and made him promise to be the leader that he wouldn’t be able to be anymore.

But they would stop him. They would fight tooth and nail to prevent him from leaving that room and he knew that he wasn’t strong enough to resist, particularly if Chan started crying.

So, he didn’t say goodbye. He told them he was going to a meeting and then he left. No guns, no knives, no weapons at all. Just him. Because that was all Sungjong wanted.

The bastard had finally pinned him down. There was absolutely no way he was going to hand Jeonghan over to them knowing what they would do to him and there was absolutely no way he was going to let them keep Joshua knowing what they _were_ doing to him.

A leader’s job was to protect, to defend and to sacrifice.

And sacrifice he would.

“I’m unarmed!” he yelled, his boots crunching in the snow beneath his feet as he marched straight up to the huge mahogany doors.

Sungjong always had been one dramatic son of a bitch. His gang was small and not even half as powerful as Seungcheol’s yet he still insisted on operating in a huge fucking mansion of all things.

The guards at the entrance raised their guns, muscles tense and unexpected glances exchanging. Clearly, they hadn’t foreseen this particular turn of events.

“Are you fucking deaf?” Seungcheol snapped, raising his hands to shoulder height in a gesture of surrender. “I said I’m unarmed. Now open the fuck up!”

He hated this. He absolutely hated every second of it but it was the only way to save both Jeonghan and Joshua so he grit his teeth and stayed still as one of the guards ran their hands over his body to check for the weapons that weren’t there.

“Once you’ve finished copping a feel, can we get this over with?”

The barrel of a gun was pushed up against the back of his neck and he had to resist the urge to bat it aside. 

He was no longer a skilled fighter. He was no longer a genius marksman. He was just a self-sacrificial lamb leading itself to the slaughter.

“Hands on your head.”

He obeyed, biting back a curse when he was shoved forwards, the threat of his spine being sliced clean in two by a bullet still present behind him.

“Move.”

The hallways were elaborately decorated, antique paintings adorning the walls and marble statues dotted in virtually every corner. It was exactly what a mafia base should look like except Seungcheol had been too busy actually doing his job to bother making his own abode look so lavish.

He recognised some of the people passing by, each of them doing a double take when they saw him and smirking in triumph when they realised he was surrendering. 

A couple of them even congratulated the guy who still had the gun pressed against the back of his neck, as if he’d carried out some heroic act to capture the infamous S.Coups.

It took everything Seungcheol had not to punch them in their smug little faces.

“In here,” the guard grunted, shunting his prisoner into the room to his left. “L, go tell the boss we have a visitor.”

So, this was Sungjong’s office. It had the oversized desk in the centre and the creepy-as-hell stuffed animal heads on the wall and the fucking nameplate of all things at the front of the table, engraved with the bastard’s name.

Just from this place alone, it was blindingly obvious that Sungjong thought far more of himself than the rest of the world did.

Before Seungcheol could make any more observations, however, a swift kick was delivered to the back of his knees and he buckled at once, bones shuddering on impact with the antique rug.

“Do that again and I’ll break your fucking jaw,” he growled over his shoulder, still with his fingers interlocked behind his head.

“I’d like to see you try,” came the cocky sneer from behind him and he rolled his eyes, sucking in a breath through his teeth and counting to ten in his mind.

This was for Joshua. This was for Jeonghan. His pride didn’t matter anymore.

There was the rhythmical clicking of dress shoes against polished floorboards and Seungcheol had just about enough time to prepare himself for the most humiliating moment of his life before the familiar mocking drawl sounded from behind him.

“Well, well, well … What do we have here?”

He kept his mouth shut and his eyes forward, focusing his attention on the stuffed crow sitting on the desktop, its feathers sleek and black and its claws gripping some sort of fake branch thing.

“I must say,” Sungjong smirked as he circled around his kneeling victim. “I was not expecting this.”

He perched on the edge of the desk and crossed his ankles, arms folded over his chest and a sickening smirk twisted on his lips. His shirt sleeves were rolled up to the elbows and there were flecks of blood splattered over his forearms.

Seungcheol could only hope that it wasn’t Joshua’s.

Sungjong leaned forwards, as though talking to a mentally disabled individual and it took every ounce of self-restraint Seungcheol owned to look him in the eye and not spit in his face. 

“Where’s the doctor then?”

He had to keep his voice level. He couldn’t get emotional. He couldn’t think about how badly he wanted Jeonghan at his side right now. He couldn’t think about how desperately he needed Joshua to just magically appear in front of him.

“Let’s not pretend,” he ground out. “That he’s the real reason you’re doing this.”

Sungjong’s eyebrow arched inquisitively, “Oh?”

“You want me dead,” Seungcheol snarled. “You always have. This isn’t about the doctor. This is about you and me.”

He should have wiped that fucker out when he’d had the chance.

“You want to kill me,” he continued, mustering up as much hatred into those words as he could. “Well, I’m right here so go the fuck ahead!”

That sadistic smirk never left Sungjong’s face as he shared a chuckle with the gunman still standing just behind Seungcheol’s kneeling figure.

“Let’s say I take you up on your very generous offer … What’s to stop your little band of teenagers from coming after me?”

“They won’t be able to,” Seungcheol reasoned. “With me dead, my turf is yours. So are my guys. If they don’t like that then they can start running but they’ll have no power. It’s everything you’ve ever wanted.”

It physically sickened him to hear those words coming out of his own mouth. What he said was true but he couldn’t imagine any of his kids – because he thought of them as _his_ kids – would ever consider siding with Sungjong once their leader was dead.

They would have to go into hiding. There would be targets on their backs for the rest of their lives. But they would stay together. They would protect each other. They would be okay so long as they remembered why Seungcheol had done this.

Sungjong was nodding, slowly, as though truly considering his options but then he crouched down in front of his captive and flicked him – actually fucking flicked him – in the eye.

“As tempting as that is,” he taunted. “I already have my plan and I think I’m going to stick to it. But thank you for playing. Your cooperation has been greatly appreciated. If I’d have known that all I needed to do to get you to give yourself up was make the pretty boy squirm a little then I would have started pulling his fingernails off years ago.”

That was the final straw.

“You motherfucker!” Seungcheol screamed, launching himself forwards and wrapping his hands around Sungjong’s throat.

He had about two and a half seconds. Two and a half seconds where Sungjong’s body was beneath him, eyes bulging, temple throbbing as his air supply was cut off. Two and a half seconds before Seungcheol was being dragged backwards, half a dozen guns aimed at his head.

He knelt there in the middle of the black clad circle, panting, fists clenched at his sides as Sungjong recovered his composure and clambered to his feet, smoothing his hair and straightening his shirt.

“You and I both know that I’m not the one who killed Min Junki,” Seungcheol growled, almost wishing that one of the men surrounding him would just pull the trigger and end this entire affair. “You did that and then you framed me for it so the Mins would destroy me and you could take over!”

Sungjong gave a light chuckle, and it just spurred Seungcheol on.

“Either way, I end up dead so what’s the fucking difference?” he yelled, fingernails digging into his palms and veins bulging in his neck. “Let Joshua go, leave the doctor alone and kill me already!”

He couldn’t remember ever being this angry. Or humiliated. He was kneeling in front of his sworn enemy, pinned down by a dozen men and begging – actually begging – to be put out of his misery.

_“Never beg.”_

That’s what his father had always said.

_“You’re a Choi. We don’t beg.”_

But his father had never had a Joshua. Or a Jeonghan. His father had never had anyone he was willing to beg for. Not even Seungcheol himself had been worthy of that honour.

“Just fucking kill me, you motherfucker!”

Sungjong seemed to have had enough, though. Being tackled and almost strangled in front of his men must have done something to his self-esteem since he couldn’t even look at the boy who was throwing his life at his feet.

Instead, he gestured meagrely towards the door, circling around his desk and settling into the huge leather chair that sat behind it so he could pretend to busy himself with whatever papers were strewn over the surface.

Immediately, there were hands on Seungcheol’s jacket and he was being wrenched to his feet, still held at gunpoint in case he tried anything else.

“Get him out of here,” Sungjong ordered in a bored voice. “And the offer still stands, Coups. Bring me the doctor in …”

He checked his watch.

“Nineteen hours, or I will make you watch as I put a bullet through your guy’s head. What was his name? Joshua, right? Now that wouldn’t be the same Joshua my father plucked from the States and turned into a little fucktoy, would it?”

Seungcheol’s heart stopped beating.

Sungjong knew who Joshua was. Sungjong knew about Joshua’s past. Sungjong knew Joshua’s triggers, knew how to make him talk, knew which pressure points had to be applied to make sure he broke completely.

And he was threatening to use them, right here, right now.

“You wouldn’t dare,” Seungcheol hissed, digging his heels into the floor as he was dragged backwards. “You wouldn’t fucking dare! I’ll kill you, you fucking bastard! I’ll kill you!”

The last thing he saw before the door swung shut behind him was Sungjong’s mischievously evil smirk. A smirk that said, clear as day, _I’ll do whatever the fuck I like and there’s nothing you can do about it._

Seungcheol was too numb to fight as he was manhandled back down the hallway, both arms twisted behind him, forcing him to bend forwards slightly as he stumbled, a gun to his head and another to his neck the entire time.

He’d tried. He’d really, really tried and he’d failed.

Sungjong still wanted Jeonghan. Sungjong still had Joshua. And Seungcheol still had to choose between the two of them.

He didn’t even register that he was back outside until his knees hit the snow, clothes instantly drenched but mind too blank to bother getting up. There was the sound of the doors closing behind him and then … nothing.

He’d failed. 


	16. Fucking with Shit

Jeonghan’s favourite cousin had depression.

She lived in the States and, although his parents had relayed very few details to him, he knew she’d been diagnosed and treated at an inpatient facility before anybody had the chance to realise how broken she’d become.

Her mother and father were some of the sweetest, kindest people he’d ever met and it left him constantly questioning how his Eomma had turned out so shitty when her sister was the epitome of a perfect parent.

Sometimes, his cousin would call him when she felt like sticking a needle in her arm or downing three bottles of liquor or slitting her wrists. She used him as a distraction and he was more than happy to comply but there was only so much he could do from across the ocean.

But, in time, she had found the perfect remedy for the days when the feelings and the urges and the temptations lingered for longer than could be ignored or suppressed. She started getting tattoos.

They ran the length of her arms, twisted around her ribs and tinged the lower part of her back, some of them no more than small, ugly little drawings but some of them – like the large cherry blossom tree between her shoulder blades – were exquisite masterpieces.

Her theory was that, if a person looked a little different on the outside, their brain would be deceived into believing they felt different on the inside. Therefore, whenever she got new ink, she looked different and she felt different.

But Jeonghan still looked the same.

He’d always thought that his long hair was the reason why he resembled his mother so closely. That, somehow, if he sliced it into a sensible style like his father’s then he’d stop looking so feminine. 

As if his high cheekbones and sharp jawline would suddenly appear as masculine as they should.

But, instead, he was left staring at a mop of choppy, uneven, chin-length strands and a still resolutely feminine face. His mother’s straight nose, soft pink lips, shapely brows and large eyes would not be thwarted by a mere haircut.

Jeonghan sighed, dropping the scissors into the sink where the severed locks of his hair were dusted over the porcelain surface.

Junhui’s knocking was still sounding at the door, accompanied with threats of breaking it down, and the doctor decided that it was probably best to put the guy out of his misery before he truly did start to damage the property. 

The bolt gave a satisfying clunk and Junhui immediately stumbled over the threshold, his eyes flitting nervously around the room before coming to settle on Jeonghan.

“That is the shittiest haircut I’ve ever seen.”

Jeonghan blinked at him, hiccupped and, before he could stop it, a small but hysterical giggle bubbled up his throat and slipped out of his mouth. It all just seemed so ridiculous. So utterly ridiculous.

Junhui grinned back at him, shaking his head from side to side, “Come on, Hannie. Lemme take care of that half job before Cheol sees it.” 

Thirty minutes later and Jeonghan’s auburn hair had been neatened and tidied into a far more acceptable style, his blackened roots beginning to grow out and leaving the reddish strands to brush against his cheeks. They gave his face the colour it had so desperately needed.

“There …” Junhui announced with a satisfied smirk, pulling Jeonghan out of the bathroom so he could examine him in a better light. “You know, I used to have hair this length. I think you’re going to regret it.”

He plopped himself down on the nearest bed and cocked his head to the side, scrutinising Jeonghan so closely that he couldn’t help but run a self-conscious hand over his scalp.

“Why did you cut it?” he asked, perching on the mattress beside him. “You probably looked good.”

“Oh, I didn’t just look good. I looked spectacular. But this job isn’t really about the looks.”

Jeonghan smirked bitterly, “You sound like Shua.”

“Shua has a point,” Junhui countered, his voice suddenly taking on that strange quality only ever present when the situation couldn’t be anything other than serious. “The world is no place for pretty boys.” 

And then, just like that, it was gone.

“I suppose,” he laughed. “In a different life, I’d be proud of the way I look. Maybe I’d even become an actor.” 

A moment of silence stretched between them. Comfortable silence. A silence Jeonghan wouldn’t mind staying in for just a little bit longer so that he wouldn’t have to face the gravity of his reality.

But sitting around doing nothing wasn’t going to be much help to anyone with one of their own still out there.

“Are they making any progress in finding Shua?” Jeonghan asked tentatively.

He was too afraid to ask anybody else. Besides Seungcheol and maybe Seokmin, Junhui was the only person in this bunker that he felt he could speak to freely. Sure, the boy was strange, skittish and scary but he also seemed to have a caring side to him.

He reminded Jeonghan of a patient he’d once treated who’d been carted in from a prison for the mentally insane. He’d needed to be cuffed to the bed 24/7 and stood over by guards with guns. That yellow-toothed grin was not easily forgettable.

Junhui always had a strange, distant look in his eye and a half smile that periodically sent chills down Jeonghan’s spine. But, despite his sketchy and ever-changing life story, he was forever blunt and upfront in the best and worst ways.

Jeonghan wished he could call him a friend.

“We have progress,” the boy nodded solemnly. “We know what we have to do to get him back so we’re just waiting for the word.”

“Oh … fuck …” Jeonghan gasped, a breathy laugh exploding from his chest. “Thank God.”

His relief had turned his bones to jelly and made his head feel full and fluffy, as if it was stuffed with cotton wool. He’d been terrified that he would never see Joshua’s face again and would spend the rest of his life blaming himself for it.

Hyuk was gone, a fact that he was resolutely ignoring in fear of shutting down again, and he couldn’t bear the thought of losing Joshua, too. Even if he didn’t know what they were to each other – friends, acquaintances or not even that – he cared. More than he was prepared to admit.

Junhui shot him another one of those lopsided smiles before straightening up and stretching.

“Come along,” he chirped, as though addressing a pre-schooler. “Let’s see if Mingyu’s willing to make us some tea.”

Jeonghan rolled his eyes at the return of the sing-song flouncing but he followed Junhui in the direction of the kitchen without further complaint.

It had only been a few hours since he and Joshua had been attacked, Hyuk had been killed and Jeonghan himself had been clinging to the very threads of sanity, but now it felt like things might just be okay.

The loss of Hyuk was festering somewhere in his ribcage but he pushed it down. Deep. And then deeper. He couldn’t deal with that right now. Maybe not ever.

“Look, look, see … There! Right there! Pause it! That’s where the lion is!”

“I don’t see anything!”

Their voices were audible even from the end of the corridor.

“You aren’t supposed to! It’s sneaking up on its prey!”

“But the grass is green, a lion is brown! How can it hide?”

“By crouching.”

“Yeah, but you’d at least see its head. I don’t think there’s a lion there.”

“You’re kidding, right? You’ve got to be kidding … Someone tell me he’s … Shit, there’s no one here to tell me you're kidding.” 

Jeonghan stifled a chuckle before pushing open the door and letting his eyes land on Minghao and Mingyu standing with their arms crossed, watching a nature documentary video on the television screen.

The lion was very clearly visible, even with the height of the grass, sneaking up on a herd of beautifully oblivious deer. 

“In the next two seconds of the clip, the lion comes right there!” Minghao practically screamed while Mingyu just stared at him with nothing but confusion on his face. “How can you say there’s no lion? Are we even watching the same video?”

Junhui settled himself on a stool at the island, pulling an apple from the fruit bowl in the middle and gnashing his teeth into it as he watched the bickering.

Mingyu, however, seemed to have decided that the argument was over and sidled to the counter to start the water boiling, leaving Minghao silently seething by the TV.

“Where is everyone?” Jeonghan broke the silence, taking note of the distinct lack of activity.

“Out,” Minghao shot back with a noncommittal shrug.

“Where?”

Another shrug followed by something in Mandarin that had Jeonghan’s brain scrambling but Junhui responding in the same foreign language.

“They’re so rude,” Mingyu mumbled under his breath as he pulled out the spices to make the tea.

Jeonghan couldn’t miss the cryptic way they were acting. The answers he received were straightforward but not really informing him of anything. It was clear that these guys were hiding something from him and he wanted to know what but, at the same time, he didn’t want to ask.

He still wasn’t sure if he’d earned his place.

“Hey, uh, Jeonghan?” Mingyu asked, holding out a tray bearing a sandwich and a cup of tea. “Can you take this to Jihoon? He’s less likely to scream at you.”

“Sure.”

He left them to their vagueness and their foreign languages, taking the food and drink with him and hoping that Jihoon was in a good enough mood to give him the answers he craved.

The control room door was visible from where he was standing at the opposite end of the hallway and he could see movement in the shadows beneath it. Jihoon generally didn’t move around while he was working.

Jeonghan balanced the tray on his hip and opened the door, not bothering to knock since Jihoon would have his headset on and therefore wouldn’t be able to hear him anyway.

But it wasn’t Jihoon who awaited him on the other side.

Hansol was dressed in black cargo pants, boots and a matching jacket, looking as if he intended on breaking into a bank and taking a dozen hostages before attempting some daredevil escape complete with gunfire and slow-motion running.

Jeonghan hadn’t been actively caring for the boy’s leg, besides the routine checks he’d undertaken, but he knew the healing time and rate of such injuries. 

The kid’s thigh would be far from properly restored to its former glory. The skin may already have sewn itself together with a sheet of silvery cells that looked like stretched plastic and gave off a sickly shine, but he probably should still be avoiding cargo-type materials.

“Hey, Hansol,” he greeted, setting the tray down in the only clear spot on the table. “Is Jihoon around?”

He kept his tone deliberately light and avoided pointing out the threat to the kid’s health. From the look on his face, he couldn’t be taking Joshua’s abduction well at all and Jeonghan did not want to be on the receiving end of that anger.

But Hansol didn’t answer. He just stared, maybe for a little too long, before he seemed to come to some definitive decision. He shouldered his bag and stormed out of the room, slipping what looked like a flashdrive into his pocket as he went.

It was weird but Jeonghan had been getting used to that lately.

“What are you doing here?”

Jihoon’s intrusion made him jump and he stepped aside to let the smaller body shuffle past to get to his computer, the omnipresent headset looped around his neck and the familiar can of soda clutched in his hand. 

His sleeves were bunched up at his elbows and Jeonghan’s eyes caught on something he hadn’t seen before: the thin scar that encompassed the entire circumference of Jihoon’s wrist.

“What happened to your arm?” he blurted before he had a chance to catch himself. 

Jihoon looked slightly bewildered for a second until he caught on and, even then, all he offered up was a shrug, “Identity theft gone wrong.”

“How does identity theft give you a scar like that?”

“I didn’t know the guy I was stealing from was a fucking loan shark,” Jihoon submitted, already typing away at his keyboard as various images and textboxes flashed up on the screen. “He had his little shits track me down, found out I hack computers and tried to yeet my hands off.”

He paused and raised his other arm to show an identical scar on that wrist, too.

“Wow …” Jeonghan found himself murmuring. “You all, like … had it tough, huh?”

It was a stupid question. Most of these guys were younger than him and yet they were all trained and experienced criminals. Nobody got into this life without having some kind of trauma.

So far, he’d learnt that something tragic and inexplicable had happened to Joshua, Seungcheol had been born into this hell hole and Junhui was so cagey with his past that Jeonghan was beginning to believe he’d been grown in a petri dish.

“I guess you can say that,” Jihoon grunted in differently, snagging the sandwich from the tray and taking a large bite.

Then he stopped, he froze and he looked around the room as if he’d heard something Jeonghan hadn’t.

“Did … Did you just come in here?” he asked, eyes narrowed in suspicion.

“Yeah, Hansol was already here. He was acting weird and then he left not long before you arrived.”

He’d hoped that would be the answer Jihoon wanted but that didn’t seem to be the case.

“Why was Hansol here?”

Jeonghan shook his head nervously, “The kid wouldn’t talk to me. Although, someone should tell him not to wear those pants with his burns.”

Jihoon nodded slowly and spun on his chair until he was face to face with his computer once more. There were a few clicks of the mouse and then he was growling into the headset with a kind of anger Jeonghan did not want to be on the wrong side of.

“Whatever you’re thinking of doing, don’t. Now bring it back before I wring your fucking neck.”

He spat the last word so hard that saliva speckled the keyboard and he ripped the headset off with a hiss of expletives that had Jeonghan’s eyebrows arching.

“Is something wrong?”

“Just don’t like fuckers fucking with my shit,” was the only response he got. 

“I didn’t touch anything,” Jeonghan insisted at once.

“Oh, I know  _ you  _ didn’t.”

Jihoon didn’t elaborate and Jeonghan left the room before he officially overstayed his welcome.

The kitchen was in a slight bustle when he returned. Wonwoo and Seungkwan had joined Junhui, Minghao and Mingyu, but the chatter was tight, taught and stifled. Sandwiches and tea were set out on the countertop and, as soon as Jeonghan walked through the door, everything went silent.

He stood there, waiting for somebody to say something, but they didn’t.

“I’ll … uh … I’m just going to head back up to my room,” he mumbled awkwardly as they continued to stare him down.

He turned, preparing to leave, but Mingyu’s voice had him hesitating, “Take some with you.”

A plate was pushed into his hands and he murmured his thanks before hurriedly jogging up the stairs to his private quarters where he could satisfy his hunger without having half a dozen pairs of eyes burning into his body.

They were all being so weird.

His bedroom door was open as he approached and it had his hairs standing on end since he distinctly remembered closing it behind him when he’d left.

Faint voices were trickling from somewhere inside, like somebody was having a one-sided conversation on speakerphone. Jeonghan stepped over the threshold, set his plate down on the table and approached the bed, carefully eyeing the iPad that sat atop the sheets.

Somebody had left a video running on loop. There was a man crouched in the frame, smiling as if speaking to a friend, but his words were pure poison. 

_ “Hand over Yoon Jeonghan and you can have your man. No foul play, no catches, no hidden agendas. You give me the doctor and everybody goes home happy.” _

“What?” Jeonghan breathed, grabbing the device off the bed and winding the video back to the start, mind reeling as it tried to make sense of what was going on.

The time stamp hit 00:00, the film started to roll and he gagged.

Something sour shot up his throat and the iPad slipped from his hands to land with a thud on the mattress, video still playing as the screams filtered into the room. Jeonghan staggered backwards, tripped and crashed to the ground just in time to throw up.

It was Joshua.

They had Joshua.

Not only did they have him but they were doing things to him that a person shouldn’t be able to survive.

Ignoring the foul-smelling puddle on the floor, Jeonghan retrieved the iPad with shaking hands and skipped through to the part that had been playing when he’d first arrived.

_ “Hand over Yoon Jeonghan and you can have your man. No foul play, no catches, no hidden agendas. You give me the doctor and everybody goes home happy.” _

The video ended and he watched it again. And again. And again. As though it would somehow change if he played it through enough times.

It made sense now. The way they’d been acting when they saw him, the way they’d refused to give him the information he’d asked for … They were waiting for Seungcheol to say the word. Just one word that would trade his life for Joshua’s. 

So what was Seungcheol waiting for?

Jeonghan didn’t need to think about it. There was no thinking to be done. This mess was his fault anyway. He’d insisted they go out in the middle of the night even though he knew the risks. He’d let Hyuk leave Joshua behind when he was incapable of protecting himself.

He was the reason this was happening in the first place and, let’s face it, what exactly did he have left to live for now that Hyuk was gone?

Limbs moving on autopilot, he stripped of his clothes and tugged on a pair of light blue jeans, a white sweater, boots and a jacket. He had no idea where he was supposed to go but he figured that, if he wandered around for long enough, somebody would find him.

They had before.

He paused to wash the tear tracks from his face and swirl some mouth wash around his tongue. If he was going to be tortured then it shouldn’t be by his own puke breath.

Without giving himself a chance to chicken out, he took the stairs two at a time and burst out into the wind and the snow and the frozen night air. Jihoon would be onto him in a minute, Junhui could catch him in less, but they should be happy that he was doing this.

He was sparing them their efforts but, more importantly, he was sparing Seungcheol his morality because that was the only reason he wasn’t in Sungjong’s clutches already.

It wouldn’t be right to trade lives and although Seungcheol walked a thin line, Jeonghan knew his ethical compass was that of the Mins since he used to work for them. There was no other way around this. Jeonghan had to do it himself.

Joshua would live.

And if he had to die to ensure that then so be it.

He took off at a sprint, pounding the pavement in the same direction he’d taken that night. It couldn’t take these guys that long to find him. They had to be quick. He had to be an easy catch.

The video had said twenty-four hours and Jeonghan wasn’t sure how much of that he’d wasted curled up in that bed, chopping off his own hair and eating sandwiches. 

He reached the alleyway. The same alleyway Joshua had been shot and Hyuk had murdered that guy and Jeonghan had run like the coward he was. There were dried blood splatters on the concrete but he ignored them, squatting against the wall and scrubbing his hands over his face.

They had to find him before Jihoon picked him up on any CCTV cameras.

“I’m sorry, Cheol,” he whispered into the silence. “Even if it was a lie, I think I was starting to love you.”

He took in a shuddering breath.

“Now come and get me, you fucking assholes."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Comments and questions are encouraged.  
> Talk to us 💜


	17. Bosses And Blow Darts

At some point, it occurred to Jeonghan that he may have hidden himself a little too well. He’d been crouched in the alleyway for at least forty-five minutes and still he was yet to feel the barrel of a gun against the back of his head.

Where had these camouflage skills been when he’d needed them a month ago? 

A month. Had it really only been that long? It seemed so much longer. Days had bled into each other until he hadn’t been able to tell where one began and another ended but, yes … it had been a month. Just a month. Almost no time at all.

Just over a month ago, Hyuk had encouraged him to try a different hair colour. As a result, they’d almost suffocated in the bathroom from the bleach fumes and the shade they came out with was an awful brassy orange.

Hyuk had laughed himself stupid for hours until Jeonghan finally plucked up the courage to call his mother and get the number of her hairdresser. 

He had practically been able to hear her rolling her eyes from the other end of the line but she’d given him the information he needed and, the following morning, his hair had been fixed into a pretty reddish colour.

That was just over a month ago.

Just over a month ago, Hyuk had dragged him straight from his shift at the hospital to a bar at the edge of town where the stereo only played oldies and the food was slathered in fatty butter but still tasted so good.

Jeonghan had even spoken to a few cute guys that night, something he almost never did, and he’d had fun. He’d been exhausted for the entirety of the next day but it had been worth it to hear Hyuk laugh the night away.

Just over a month ago, they’d sat crammed together on the couch under one blanket, the floor littered with notes and text books that were being ignored in the favour of the horror movie Hyuk had put on. 

They’d eaten ice cream straight from the tub and laughed heartily at the unrealistic special effects on the screen. It had all been just over a month ago but it felt like years had passed since Jeonghan had been that happy.

In a dramatic contrast, his calculations led him to the realisation that at least ten of the twenty-four hours he had to give himself up had passed by in a flesh. Time was moving too quickly. He had to be found soon.

Knees popping, he stood from his crouching position, fully intending on finding the nearest CCTV camera and causing a ruckus if that was what he needed because if Seungcheol had Jihoon then Sungjong surely had a hacker of his own that could track him down.

He hadn’t even made it into a standing position when his hair was grabbed in a vice-like grip.

_Shit._

A sharp pain prickled over the back of his scalp and his eyes immediately started to water. He’d wanted them to find him but he hadn’t expected the sudden feeling of dread to wash over him and weaken his knees.

He struggled, albeit briefly, against the tight hold before being thrown into the snow, a faceless shadow looming over him with a spindly body and a sword, of all things, strapped over his back.

Minghao.

“Stand,” he ordered and Jeonghan immediately scrambled to his feet.

Minghao looked pissed. His usually mildly irritated expression had hardened into pure undiluted apoplectic fury and Jeonghan found himself physically withering beneath the glare.

“What the fuck were you thinking?”

“I was –”

“Shut up! It was rhetorical!” Minghao shouted back, flecks of spit flying from the tip of his tongue. “I can’t believe this shit! And you know what? Just last week, I was telling Mingyu how I thought you were fucking brilliant! Clearly, I was wrong!”

“Hey … I –”

“I said shut up!”

Jeonghan closed his mouth again as Minghao started pacing back and forth in the small space between the two buildings, running his fingers through his hair and ranting under his breath.

“Of all the selfish fucking idiotic bullshit you could have fucking pulled … You and Cheol … Idiots, the both of you … Fuck!”

Jeonghan balked. He understood that the kid was upset but he wasn’t about to sit still and let himself be insulted on a broken record loop.

“Selfish?” he parroted incredulously. “I’m doing this for you! You think I want to give myself up? You think I want to die? Joshua pushed me in front of him that night he got taken! He was shot because he made me go first and he’s important to you! To all of you!”

Minghao stopped pacing to hold up a hand in front of Jeonghan’s face.

“Did I say you could speak? I don’t think I said you could speak. Who told you that you could speak?”

So that’s what it felt like to be on the receiving end of Minghao’s condescending line of questions. No wonder Mingyu chose to ignore him so often.

“Minghao, listen,” he started. “I know you’re upset and I’m sorry but isn’t this what you want? Isn’t this what all of you want? This is how we get Shua back. That’s what the video said …”

“The video?”

“Yes …” Jeonghan sighed in frustration. “The video. I saw it and there isn’t long left. So if you want Joshua to live then you have to let me go.”

Minghao wasn’t listening, “Who showed you the video?” 

“It was just playing on my bed when I got to my room. What does it matter?” He threw his hands up in the air and had to resist the urge to punch the nearest wall. “Look, Minghao, I’m sorry for the trouble but you have to tell me how to find these people …”

“No.” 

Jesus, did this kid want Joshua to die?

“Please …”

“We have to go,” Minghao ground out furiously, refusing to make eye contact. “Cheol will get back soon and if you aren’t there, he’ll probably murder somebody.”

He seized Jeonghan’s arm but the doctor threw him off with a shake of his head, “I can’t!”

“You fucking have to, you little shit!”

It was clear that Minghao was beginning to lose patience but that didn’t matter to Jeonghan. He was never important to these people. He knew that now. He was just a tool they kept around to produce at the opportune moment and clear Seungcheol’s name.

But Joshua … Joshua they loved. He was like a brother to them and they were running out of time.

If Jeonghan managed to get himself caught now then maybe it wouldn’t be too late to save Joshua. He could practically list the wounds, scars and potential infections that boy could have contracted just from that short clip he’d only just stomached watching. 

That was what he was thinking of when he pushed off the wall and shouldered Minghao out of the way, taking advantage of the boy’s alarmingly skinny frame as he skidded out into the street.

He needed this to be over with already.

But what he didn’t predict was that Minghao would have a fucking blow dart because who the fuck carried a sword and a blow dart? Was he even existing in this century?

The missile hit him in the back of the neck, burrowing deep into his flesh, and Jeonghan could feel warmth seeping from the entry point, down his spine and into his chest. The further it spread, the warmer it felt and before he could even reach up to pull it out, his legs collapsed.

He couldn’t even move his arms to break his fall, sprawling in the snow with a grunt of pain.

“Shit …” came Minghao’s hiss from above him as he seemed to come to the realisation that he could, in no way, carry his victim. “I didn’t think this through.”

Jeonghan would have laughed at the skinny boy’s distress if he could feel his lips. If he could feel his face at all. Everything was moving slowly. His thoughts felt like they were swimming through syrup.

What the fuck had been on that blow dart?

And who the fuck actually carried a blow dart?

He was just about able to make out the sounds of Minghao calling for backup before his hearing cut out and his thoughts faded away.

\-------------------

Jeonghan must have been beginning to risk serious brain damage with the amount of time he spent unconscious. His eyelids were far too heavy to crack open just yet so he came around to the darkness before anything else.

There was the gentle pressure of a hand on his thigh, the soft texture of pillows beneath him and the low murmuring of voices blurring in the air around him before the words became clearer.

“… all I have, Seungcheol … you and this team! What the fuck would have happened to us if he’d taken you up on your offer, huh? Back to the pharmacist for Seokmin? Back in the ring for Wonwoo? Back on the drugs for Chan? Huh? What the fuck were you thinking?”

“I was thinking that I could save Shua. We all know how this thing works,” Seungcheol’s pained muttering came in response.

“You knew he wouldn’t take you! If he did, the Min’s vendetta falls on him!”

“It was worth a shot. I wasn’t about to trade Han for Shua.” 

“I know that. I understand. I’m fond of the kid, too, but think about your team here. Hansol, Wonwoo, Chan … You know how they feel about this. We need a solution and fast. We’re almost out of time.”

“I know … fuck, I kn –”

“Shh,” Seokmin hissed. “Hannie’s awake.”

Jeonghan pried his eyelids apart to see three whitened faces staring down at him.

“Seokmin, Junhui, give me a moment, would you?”

The addressees nodded and left the room without another word. 

Seungcheol looked sad. And tired. And angry. But, above all, he looked relieved and Jeonghan barely had time to open his mouth before his shoulders were seized and he was being wrenched into a sitting position.

“What the fuck were you doing?” Seungcheol hissed, his hands moving upwards to cup Jeonghan’s face. “Why would … Why would you go out there?”

It may have been a trick of the light but he could have sworn he saw the first traces of tears in the big bad mafia boss’ eyes and, all of a sudden, the big bad mafia boss wasn’t the only one who was angry.

“Well, by the sound of it, you did, too,” Jeonghan shot back, trying to gesture towards the door Junhui and Seokmin had just left through but finding his arms too heavy to lift. “Feeling hypocritical yet?”

Seungcheol bit down on his bottom lip, still holding Jeonghan’s face in his hands, and one of his thumbs reached out to brush the newly-shortened hair out of the doctor’s eyes.

“It looks good,” he whispered. “I like it.”

Jeonghan had completely forgotten he’d even cut it. With everything that had happened in between, it had faded into the background, just another memory. Like Hyuk would be. Like Joshua would be.

“You should have let me go,” he hissed bitterly, swatting Seungcheol’s hands from his face and swinging his legs over the edge of the bed. “That’s all you had to do. Turn a blind eye and let me go and everything would have been fine.”

He seized the bed post and used it to pull himself up, legs a little shaky but just about strong enough to bear his weight and he realised for the first time that he was once again in Seungcheol’s room instead of his own.

“How can you say that?”

“How can you not?”

Jeonghan wasn’t exactly sure where he was going. He just needed to move. To pace. To shake the nervous energy out of his body because he no longer felt like he deserved to own it.

“You’re not heartless,” he directed at Seungcheol who was still sitting on the bed, eyes wide and watering. “I’ve seen you with Chan, with Hansol, with Seokmin … You’re not heartless, which is why I don’t understand what you’re doing!”

Seungcheol was shaking his head, seemingly at a loss for what to say, so Jeonghan ploughed right on.

“I am nothing to you! We met a month ago! You were going to kill me and then just waltz off like nothing happened! Joshua’s been with you for years! He’s fought with you, protected you, I’m fairly confident in saying he’s taken a couple of bullets for you, right? So why the fuck are you prioritising my life over his?”

They were out of time. Their twenty-four hours were up. There wasn’t anything left. Seungcheol had made his choice by sending Minghao out there to bring him back.

He wasn’t sure what he was expecting in response to his little outburst but never, not in a billion years, would it have been for Seungcheol to start crying.

The mafia boss was right in front of him, perched on the edge of his bed, unrecognisable as the man who had crouched in front of Jeonghan that night. Almost a month ago.

There was the flicker of an eyelid, that was all, and then there were tears on his face.

“I love him,” he choked. “Joshua … I love him so much but … I love you, too. In a different way. A scarier way. A way that made it impossible for me to sell you to those people.”

“You’re lying,” Jeonghan murmured, shaking his head and stumbling backwards a couple of steps. “Why are you lying? Why are you always lying?”

“I have never lied to you!” Seungcheol shouted back, finally rising from his seat on the bed. “Never! I have always told you the truth!”

“Then why don’t I believe you?”

“I don’t know! Why don’t you?”

“I don’t know either!”

It was a mess. Everything was such a mess. They were standing in this room, crying, shouting at each other, trying to make sense of their feelings while Joshua was slowly dying in some basement because of the decisions they’d made.

“Hyuk’s dead,” Jeonghan whispered at last. “Do you know what that feels like? Losing my best friend? It feels … It feels like burning. Like burning and burning and sometimes, the fire starts to die but then I think of him and it starts burning again but, this time, it’s twice as hot. It’s always burning, Cheol, and it never goes out. That’s what it’s going to be like losing Joshua.”

Seungcheol had tear streaks on his face and the weirdest thing was that he wasn’t even trying to hide them. He was letting them fall, breaths hitching and hands trembling at his sides.

He had never looked less like a gangster.

“I don’t know what to do,” he admitted and that … that was by far the scariest sentence Jeonghan had ever heard.

Seungcheol was a leader. He was supposed to know what to do. That was his job. His role. He had the answers before the questions were even asked. He had the solutions before the problem had even surfaced. He was in control. Always.

Except now.

“I can’t let him die … I can’t … I can’t lose him … but I can’t lose you either.”

“Why?” Jeonghan cried, frustration and desperation evident in his tone. “I know already! Okay? You can drop the act! I get it! You made up this fake relationship, made me think that I could actually fucking have something! You don’t love me, Cheol! You just need me! You need me to testify and you need me to prove your innocence and that is the only reason you’re keeping me around! Just fucking admit it!”

Seungcheol looked like he was on the verge of a complete breakdown and half of Jeonghan wanted nothing more than to wrap him in his arms and hold him until he felt safe again but the other half knew better.

“If you think …” the leader choked out, advancing a couple of steps as a fresh wave of tears cascaded over his face. “That any of that’s true then why are you still here? Why haven’t you walked away and left us?”

That was the million-dollar question and Jeonghan was completely stumped. He’d told himself that he couldn’t leave. That these people wouldn’t let him and that, if he did, he’d be killed on sight. But, somewhere along the line, he started calling this place home.

“If you think that any of that’s true,” Seungcheol repeated, taking another couple of steps. “Then why didn’t I throw you to Sungjong as soon as Joshua got taken? If I didn’t … If I didn’t need you as badly as I do then I promise you, Han, I would have traded you for Shua in a heartbeat because I thought that nothing and no one was as important to me as him … but here we are.”

Here they were.

It could have been so easy. They could have handed Jeonghan over and found another way to get the Mins off their backs. They could have saved Joshua as soon as they realised what Sungjong wanted.

And yet here they were.

“If you think that any of that’s true,” Seungcheol whispered. “Then why are you holding onto me?”

Jeonghan blanched, blinked and then looked down. He hadn’t realised how close they’d gotten and he certainly hadn’t realised that his hands had somehow found their way to Seungcheol’s sleeves, clinging so tightly that his knuckles turned white.

“I don’t know,” he whimpered, staring at where his own fingers were clenched around the fabric. “I don’t know."

He couldn’t see anymore. Everything was blurry and everything was spinning and he couldn’t bring himself to let go because Seungcheol was the only thing that seemed to be staying still. That seemed to be staying at all as the rest of the world disappeared.

“I ...think I love you …” Seungcheol said under his breath as Jeonghan felt those hands cupping his face again. “I love you … I shouldn’t … but I love you …”

The whisper came from chapped lips, from leaking eyes, from a face that was so pale, but it was so strong. The strongest thing Jeonghan had heard in a long, long time.

“I love you, too.”

They didn’t kiss. Kissing would be wrong. Kissing would be unfair and selfish and an insult to Joshua. But they hugged. Really tight. Because they needed that contact. They needed that warmth and that safety and that connection to prove to themselves and each other that the world wasn’t coming to an end.

The world wasn’t coming to an end.

The door burst open, a haggard and terrified-looking Chan stumbling over the threshold. He didn’t even bat an eyelid at the sight of his leader and the pretty doctor wrapped around each other as he tried to gasp out his message.

“Cheol … Cheol …”

“What is it?” Seungcheol asked, drying his tears on the back of his sleeve as he drew away from the embrace but slipped his hand into Jeonghan’s. “What’s wrong?”

Jeonghan looked at his watch.

“It’s … It’s Sungjong … He …”

Their time was up.

“You need to come …”

It seemed the world _was_ coming to an end after all.


	18. Burning

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just putting the warning here: This chapter is extremely gory. Please be careful

Seungcheol didn’t let go of Jeonghan’s hand even as he took off running after Chan, seemingly unwilling to let go of the only bit of comfort and release he’d managed to obtain since this war had been declared.

Jeonghan couldn’t breathe. He didn’t want to think about what was happening. He didn’t want to think about what he was about to burst in on. He didn’t want to think about the awful, terrible, despicable things that were about to go down now the clock had reached zero.

Chan led them to Jihoon’s room where everybody was awaiting their arrival, some loitering in the back, some perched precariously on the edges of chairs, some looking as if they wanted to start pacing or tapping their feet in impatience.

But they all had one thing in common: the fury on their faces.

Seungcheol shouldered his way to the front of the room, dragging Jeonghan with him, where a cell phone plugged into a speaker sat innocently on the desk beside Jihoon’s computer. A call was in progress, a gentle tutting sound echoing through the room from the other end of the line.

Jihoon shuffled out of the way so Seungcheol could take his chair, pulling Jeonghan down onto his lap and making the leather creak beneath the combined weight. If the situation had been any different then Jeonghan would have felt embarrassed but he wasn’t sure he would be able to make it through this without Seungcheol’s touch.

“Ah … I think I hear Mr Coups!”

Sungjong’s cheery chirping crackled through the speakers, alerting everyone in the room to the fact that he was about as cruel, cold and sadistic as they came. 

“I’m here, Sungjong.”

Seungcheol responded, his voice slightly rough from his brief but recent emotional episode, and Jeonghan could tell he was deliberately not clearing his throat in case Sungjong picked up on the weakness.

“Good, good, Mr Coups. Now, we made an agreement earlier, followed up by a lengthy discussion in person and I have to say I’m a little upset that you haven’t delivered your side of the deal. I mean … I feel like I was being very reasonable.”

It was unnerving. His tone sounded so humane and even slightly childish, as though he were pouting in a sulk at not having one of his toys returned to him, but the threats that lay behind the words were what truly had Jeonghan’s hairs standing on end.

This psychopath had Joshua. They’d all seen that video. They’d seen what he could do without batting an eyelid. And now he was speaking to them. He was communicating with them.

It made the situation a billion times more real and a billion times more terrifying.

Granted, there were people in this room who had done practically the same things – abduction, torture – but that was different. Jeonghan hadn’t known their victims. Jeonghan hadn’t cared about their victims. Their victims hadn’t been Joshua. 

Across the room, Hansol stood up from his chair and interlocked his fingers behind his neck, taking several deep breaths and keeping his gaze resolutely focused on the floor in front of him.

“I told you,” Seungcheol answered, his voice calm and level. “That I do not agree to your terms. I’m willing to meet and discuss a different arrangement but …”

“Well, that’s a pretty shitty decision, Coups,” the pleasant voice carried on, a breathy laugh of incredulity puffing from a chest that contained a blackened heart. “I’ll give you one more chance.”

Jeonghan didn’t look but he could feel every head in the room swivel in Seungcheol’s direction as they awaited their leader’s response, whether it be a word of consent, an order or his own personal threat.

Hansol’s shoulders were heaving, nostrils flaring. Chan had his fingers clasped over his mouth. Junhui was already holding his gun. Seokmin was hunched over in a chair, elbows resting on his knees, head in his hands. Mingyu wasn’t breathing.

Jeonghan wondered how many of them wanted Seungcheol to say ‘yes’. To suddenly toss him to the floor, kick him unconscious and agree to hand him over in a body bag with a bow on top. He wondered if any of them wanted him to live.

Seungcheol breathed in, very slow, very controlled and tightened his arm around Jeonghan’s waist as he growled the words, “No deal.” 

Jeonghan closed his eyes. He didn’t want to know what kind of looks the others were giving them at this moment. He didn’t want to see the murder in the expressions or the hatred in their postures or the knives resting readily in their hands.

“Ah … That was said with finality. I admire a man who knows what he wants,” Sungjong laughed down the line. “I hope the doctor tastes as sweet as he looks.”

As hard as he tried, Jeonghan couldn’t suppress the shiver that ran down his spine and his hands automatically leapt to the arm Seungcheol had clamped around his middle, curling his fingers into the leader’s jacket sleeve.

“This isn’t how we do things, Sungjong,” Seungcheol snarled into the speaker. “Hostages, ransom, that’s dirty play. That’s a coward’s game. My guy hasn’t done anything to you. Let him go and you and I can work something out.”

“Work something out?” the psychopath echoed, a hint of disbelief in his voice. “And what would that entail exactly? I show up, you and your ‘guys’ empty a couple of rounds into my chest and then walk away without a second thought? See, I don’t think so, Coups.”

“Sungjong, I …”

“I’m talking!” Sungjong roared, and Jeonghan actually flinched. “I gave you your chance, Coups. Some would say I gave you too many chances. So, remember that you let this happen. Remember that it was your choice that ended your buddy’s life.”

“Sungjong!” Seungcheol yelled, leaning forwards and grabbing hold of the phone as a smidgen of panic slipped past his façade. “Sungjong, listen to me! You do not have to kill him! Do you hear me? You do not have to kill him!”

There was silence from the other end. A long, long, long silence. And then Sungjong started laughing.

It was a kind of maniacal cackle, growing in volume and intensity until it resembled more of a hyena than a human. It had Jeonghan’s spine tingling and his eyes watering from behind their closed lids as he imagined what was happening in that room.

“Hey,” Sungjong called out, this time a little distant as though addressing somebody else. “Take his gag off. We should at least let him say goodbye, right? We’re not monsters.”

Jeonghan’s eyes flew open just in time to see Hansol take a step forward, his hands clenched into fists, only to have Minghao lay a restraining grip on his shoulder.

There were a few jostles from the other end of the line and then the only sound that could be heard was a kind of ragged, rasping, rattling wheeze. As if somebody was trying to breathe through a lollipop stick.

“Go on,” Sungjong coaxed tauntingly. “Say goodbye.”

There was nothing. Only more wheezing. And then a very audible, very violent smacking sound.

“I said say goodbye!”

A cough. A splutter. Another wheeze. A spitting noise that probably indicated a mouthful of blood being vacated and then perhaps the thinnest, weakest and most pained whisper that Jeonghan had ever heard a human being produce.

“Cheol …”

Jeonghan’s first tear fell at that word. Joshua sounded so broken. And hurt. And afraid.

Hansol lunged forwards, a strangled cry escaping his lips before Wonwoo’s arms wrapped around him from behind and a hand was clamped over his mouth, muffling his whimpering attempts to call out to his big brother.

“Cheol …”

He was crying, Jeonghan could hear it now. That big tough scary murderer who had pointed a gun in his face all those weeks ago was crying. Crying out for his friend who was, right now, paralysed with shock.

“Cheol,” Jeonghan whispered, glancing over his shoulder at the boy’s face. “Cheol, he needs you.”

“I’m here, Shua,” Seungcheol choked, showing the first hint of vulnerability since the call had started. “Hang on just a little longer, okay? I’m gonna get you out of this and then we’re gonna go for a drink, okay? Okay?”

“O … kay …”

“And I think that’s enough!” Sungjong hollered, and that wheezing sound was gone. “Well, it was very nice talking to you, Coups … or ‘Cheol’ I guess your real name is. That’s good to know. But I’m afraid I am a very busy man so this’ll have to be … Hey, no! Keep the gag off. I want them to hear this.”

Seungcheol stiffened.

“As I was saying, this’ll have to be goodbye from me.”

“Sungjong!” Seungcheol called out frantically as Hansol’s struggles against Wonwoo increased in ferocity, words still muffled by the older boy’s hand over his lips. “Sungjong … Sungjong, please!”

“Light it,” came the short command and Jeonghan could just about make out the hissing sound of a match being struck.

“No …” Chan whispered from somewhere in the back. “No, no, no, no … God, please, no …”

And then the screaming started.

Jeonghan used to think he knew all the sounds a human could make. Working in the emergency department had introduced him to a new world of groans, moans, wails and whimpers. But nothing like this.

He couldn’t compare it to the anguished cries of a mother in childbirth.

The harsh panting of somebody with a broken tailbone being jostled about.

The low grunts of abdominal pain growing until it was too much to bear.

Not even the piercing screeches of a person being dragged from a mangled car or cut loose from a bear trap.

This sound, the one gushing through the speakers and burrowing deep into each of their skulls, was a harsh animalistic shriek of pure agony. And the fire was audible now. Something crackled, popped and sizzled as Joshua continued to scream.

It had started with pained whimpers, probably as the heat reached his feet, followed by panicked grunts as he tried to struggle away from the burning. And then the screams themselves.

Jeonghan could even picture it: the flames spreading over his body, eating away at cloth and flesh and muscle until there was nothing left. Nothing but a skeleton of charcoal.

The meat would be separating from his bones, blackening and peeling and bubbling away. The cries grew in pitch and pain, spluttered, choking sounds that would suddenly pause, leaving them hopeful that it was finally over, only to restart again a second later.

And in between would come the whimpers, barely audible over the crackle and sizzle of burning flesh and yet somehow louder than anything else. 

"Hel me… Cheol … plea… He-Hel me …" 

By now, the fire would have reached his chest and arms.

Jeonghan only knew that because the screaming stopped. He only knew that because there came a point where the lungs and throat shrivelled in response to the heated air they’d been forced to breathe in, and any speech was out of the question.

Joshua wouldn’t be dead yet. Just in shock, unable to move as the rest of his body slowly charred and withered away like melted plastic. 

Jeonghan had read enough textbooks to know the exact order in which every organ would shut down before his heart finally gave out and his suffering came to an end.

But not yet. There would still be a little way to go before then. And every second of it would hurt like fucking hell.

It was about the most painful way to die that the bastards could have thought up.

“NO!” Hansol cried, finally breaking free of Wonwoo’s grasp and throwing himself on his knees in front of the phone, tear-stained fingers grappling for the device. “No … No … Please … Please, no …” 

Jeonghan scrambled off Seungcheol’s lap and staggered away from the chair until his back hit the wall, leaving space for Hansol to grieve and also putting as much distance between him and the roar of the flames as possible.

The kid was holding his head in his hands, clawing at his hair and tugging hard enough to pull clumps from his scalp, still screaming and kneeling and wailing as if his entire world had just come to an end.

It reminded Jeonghan of the pitiful cries of the pre-schoolers being separated from their parents for the first time. Wrinkled noses, red faces, snot-stained grabby hands, as if they’d never see their beloved Mama and Papa again. They always did.

But Hansol … Hansol wouldn’t. 

Joshua wasn’t coming back. He wasn’t going to swing by and pick him up after a few hours and ask him if he’d made any new friends. He wasn’t going to put his arms around him and promise him that, no matter what, he would always love him.

“FUCK!” Hansol roared, ripping his wrists from Seungcheol’s grip and straightening up to give the nearest chair the most brutal kick he could muster, sending it slamming backwards into the shelves behind it.

Jihoon didn’t even scold him.

The kid’s voice was growing hoarse and his breathing was getting shallower with every passing second but nobody seemed to want to risk approaching him. Nobody wanted to detach themselves from their own coping process.

Every face was tear-streaked, save maybe for Junhui’s, and Jeonghan couldn’t quite tell if it was solely from losing Joshua in such a horrific way or from witnessing Hansol’s meltdown, too.

He wasn’t screaming words. It was just screams. Indecipherable screams. Screams that meant nothing and yet meant everything at the same time because his brightest light had just gone out right in front of him and there was nothing he could do about it.

It wasn’t until he grabbed one of the computer screens and raised it above his head, clearly about to throw it, that Mingyu stepped in and wrestled the bludgeon from his hands.

“Stop,” he ordered softly, catching the fist Hansol aimed at his face and pulling the broken boy against his chest. “Stop now. Stop.”

Hansol’s knees just seemed to give out, as if Mingyu’s embrace was all he needed to escape the monster he’d been turning into. 

The two of them sank to the floor, Mingyu with his jaw set and his eyes only just swimming and Hansol with the huge great dollops rolling down his cheeks and the hands that clawed at the arms around him.

“This is your fault,” he sobbed, and he looked Jeonghan right in the eye as he said it. “This is your fault … This is your fault!”

Jeonghan already knew that. He’d been bracing himself for the blame and the curses. He was even willing to bet that one of them would try to hit him. Maybe pull a gun on him. Push him up against a wall with a knife to his throat.

God knew he deserved it. This was his fault. All of it. Hyuk. Joshua. All of it.

He knew and yet hearing somebody actually utter the words was what truly broke him inside. Was what truly made him feel as if he was right there in the flames with Joshua, burning alongside him.

He wished it had been him instead. It should have been him instead. Why couldn’t it have been him instead?

Swallowing the bile crawling up his throat, he tore his eyes from Hansol’s for fear that he, too, would sink to the floor and start screaming even though he didn’t have the right to. He didn’t have the right to do anything. Cry, breathe, live … Anything.

“I hope,” Hansol rasped, his body sagging into Mingyu’s chest as the last of his strength left him. “He’s a good fuck, Cheol …”

Seungcheol got to his feet, quivering like a leaf and looking completely and utterly shell-shocked but still he reached out for Jeonghan, wordlessly pleading for physical contact that Jeonghan was just as desperate for himself.

They clung to each other, listening to the various sounds of grief echoing all around them.

It was his fault.

His fault.

All his fucking fault.

"It's already burning," Seungcheol whispered, and Jeonghan felt the last layer of his protective shields shattering. 

He never could have predicted that his metaphor would be taken so literally. 

Someone had ended the call at some point but it didn’t matter. Joshua’s screams would be reverberating through their heads for the rest of their lives.


	19. A Second's Sacrifice

Seungcheol lost his sister when he was fifteen.

At that point, he’d already been well into his training and hadn’t been permitted to go to her funeral. He could still remember shrugging it off and returning to his training as usual, but he’d cried that night, muffling the soft sobs with his pillow in case anybody heard him.

He’d cried that night and every other night for two weeks afterwards.

He recalled being confused as to why he was shedding tears. She was dead. There was nothing he could do to change that and it wasn’t like her funeral wasn’t going to proceed without him. They hardly ever contacted each other anyway.

There was no reason to cry and so, as soon as he realised that, he stopped. 

It had been almost ten years and since then, his eyes had remained completely dry. There had been no cause for tears or tantrums. That wasn’t what a leader was supposed to do. But then in waltzed a pretty young doctor with a bite as fierce as his bark, a righteous mind and a level head even with his life under threat.

Jeonghan exuded delicacy and grace but also a will far stronger than a lot of people Seungcheol knew. Maybe that was the reason why he’d found himself breaking down in front of him twice in the space of twelve hours.

Seungcheol understood that it was selfish.

He should have gone to Junhui or Mingyu but they were probably busy trying to restrain Minghao. That kid didn’t take loss well at all but even he was better than Hansol who’d needed to be strapped to a bed in the med bay for his and everyone else’s safety. 

Especially Jeonghan’s.

Seungcheol understood that it was selfish.

He should have retired to the training room where he could blow off steam on a punching bag or the shooting range where he could take his inexplicable anger out on the target or Seungkwan’s bar where he could drink himself stupid. He should have done anything other than this.

Jeonghan had spent the entire night with his arms wrapped around the leader’s middle and his ear pressed into his chest as Seungcheol clung to him and cried. And they were still there now, only the tears had dried up and Jeonghan’s breaths had evened out in sleep.

For all the confessions of love Seungcheol had spewed yesterday, he had no idea what to do with them. He was no virgin, not by a long shot. That was one of the first things they gave you when you got out of training: a girl and a gun.

Lately, he hadn’t had the time, but he used to visit Seungkwan’s club frequently enough to be able to say with conviction that his ‘purity’ – or whatever they called it these days – was long gone.

But this … What he had with Jeonghan wasn’t about sex. It was a respect that had grown into whatever it was that kept them together. And, after lying there, staring at the ceiling, for long enough to evaluate it, Seungcheol finally recognised the emotion for what it was. Love.

He knew what love was. He loved his team, he loved Joshua and now he supposed he loved Jeonghan.

But this wasn’t the time or the place for such feelings. Now, more than ever before, he had to put his kids first. He had to take care of them and support them because they had never suffered a loss like this.

Seungcheol had already prioritised Jeonghan once and Joshua had paid the price. He had to be smarter about this if he wanted to keep them all safe.

Maybe, after everything came to an end, he could explore the little things with Jeonghan. Lazy kisses, snuggles, perhaps even sex but, for now, he had to keep his distance. He couldn’t be confused or distracted or tempted by something he couldn’t have. 

And then he remembered.

In the world they lived in, leaders almost always chose a second in command, not only to act in their stead but also to keep them sane and rational when things got overwhelming or too hectic to handle.

Joshua was gone now. It was horrific and it was unbearable but it was also true and Seungcheol needed a second. He wasn’t strong enough without one and he knew it was too soon – he knew – but Sungjong was still out for Jeonghan and the Mins were a larger threat than they’d ever been before.

And he couldn’t do it alone.

Holding his tongue between his teeth in an attempt to remain as quiet as possible, he wiggled out of Jeonghan’s sleep-slackened grasp and carefully repositioned the covers in his place. The doctor’s shortened hair had fanned out around his face and the only word that came to Seungcheol’s head was … angel.

It was about as painful as ripping off a band aid when he finally forced himself to leave the room in search of Joshua’s replacement. 

Junhui was a wild card at best.

No one knew where he came from, what he was doing here or where he planned on going in the future. When Seungcheol had finally agreed to let him stay, he’d slept with a gun under his pillow for the first month and then a knife for several weeks afterwards just in case the boy had been planted there to make an attempt on his life.

But, as time went on, Junhui had become a reliable – strange but reliable – member of the team.

He had the gift of foresight, he was always calm, he knew how to get what he wanted out of people and he worked well with a team no matter who was added or who was taken away … or killed.

He picked up on Joshua’s insecurities, Minghao’s panic attacks, Chan’s need for independence and Jihoon’s need for understanding, and he seemed to know exactly what to do whenever a crisis presented itself.

Junhui gave and gave and gave without ever asking for anything in return and, after those few months in which they’d feared his presence, there had come a time in which they feared his absence.

Seungcheol had spent many nights reminding himself that he could wake up one morning to realise Junhui had waltzed out of their lives just as silently and as easily as he had waltzed in, and, if he wanted to, he could disappear off the face of the Earth.

The boy was in the kitchen when Seungcheol finally found him, brewing several cups of coffee in varying sizes and shades, and when he registered the intrusion, he held out the darkest of them all.

Somehow, he’d memorised how every one of them took their caffeine doses.

“Should I give you Jeonghan’s?” he asked absently, placing a scoop of ice cream in the largest cup that would undoubtedly be for Wonwoo. “Or will he be down?”

“He will be soon enough,” Seungcheol croaked back. “But I need to talk to you before the others start moving about.”

“Shoot.”

They perched on the island stools, steaming mugs clasped in front of them. Seungcheol knew he needed the kickstart after the sleepless night he’d had but he couldn’t bring himself to swallow anything so he resorted to just staring at the muddy brown liquid as he spoke.

“I need a new second.”

He felt sick. Joshua hadn’t even been dead a day.

“I know it’s too soon to make it official but I need you to act as one for the time being. Just until we get the Mins sorted.”

Junhui raised his brow but, other than that, he didn’t react and Seungcheol was jealous of his ability to stay composed when they’d listened to their best friend being burned alive just yesterday.

“And after?”

“And after … I’d like you to take over as leader.”

The usually playful light in Junhui’s eyes dimmed as if his soul got a little darker.

“Take over as leader?” he echoed flatly. “And just what the fuck do you intend to do with all your free time, Cheol?”

Seungcheol had known he would react like this.

“I … I think I need to leave … for good …”

“You’re running away,” the boy filled in for him, anger filtering into his tone. “You’re putting me in charge so you can run away from … what? Jeonghan? Joshua?”

Just hearing somebody else say his name felt like a bullet to the gut.

“Jun, it’s not like that,” he pleaded, frantically scrubbing his hands over his face in frustration.

“Then what is it like? Were you planning to take Han on a honeymoon? Travel the world? See the sights? Or are you gonna slit your wrists, Cheol?”

“Of course not!” Seungcheol shouted back, matching Junhui’s steely glare before he felt the anger draining from his exhausted body. “I’m not doing any of that. I just … I feel … I’ve failed as a leader. I’ve failed all of you.”

Junhui scoffed as though he’d just heard the most ridiculous of claims and Seungcheol would have punched him in the face if he wasn’t so, so,  _ so  _ tired.

“You didn’t fail anyone,” his companion declared. “You made the choice that you thought was the best. Sungjong was playing you from the start. He’d have made you listen to Hannie die just the same.”

Seungcheol closed his eyes and unconsciously brought his hand up to his face, sticking a finger in his ear and hoping against hope that he could somehow suck the echoing screams from his memory.

“We don’t trade lives,” Junhui continued. “Shua knew that. He put himself in harm’s way for Jeonghan and you want to disregard that sacrifice because you’re feeling sorry for yourself?” 

“I can’t do it, Jun,” Seungcheol blurted, fiercely blinking back the tears he could not afford to deal with at this moment in time. “Shua … Shua is dead. He’s  _ dead.  _ He died on my watch. Under my protection. I am never going to forget that and I am never going to be able to look at those kids without remembering that I took him from them.”

It hurt to speak. It hurt to breathe. It hurt to exist in a world where Joshua didn’t.

“I’ll be your second, Cheol,” Junhui conceded as Seungcheol clenched his hands into fists and took a couple of deep breaths. “But I won’t take your place. These guys need you and when Hansol calms down, he’ll see that you and Shua made the right choice. And then he’s going to want to start exploding things, so suck it up, yeah?” 

Seungcheol glanced up at him, taking in the hardened eyes and the unbrushed hair, and it occurred to him for the first time that Junhui may not have taken Joshua’s murder as well as he’d initially believed.

But he was right. Seungcheol wasn’t God. He couldn’t pick and choose who got to live. Joshua had already been as good as dead when that video was sent to them. There was no way Sungjong would have just let him go.

Sending the bait into that monster’s arms would have been cold-blooded murder, and Joshua had made a conscious decision that night to save Jeonghan’s life. If Seungcheol resigned his post, he would be insulting that sacrifice.

“Yeah …” he murmured in defeat.

Together, they distributed the rest of the coffees and then separated, Seungcheol returning to his room to find that Jeonghan was no longer there. Part of him wanted to go looking for him but the rest knew that, if he tried anything stupid, Jihoon would catch him on the cameras.

Right now, he needed to get in touch with Soonyoung and find out where the head of the Mins was hiding so they could send Jeonghan's video to him. Only when his name was cleared would he be able to track Sungjong down and rip his throat out.

He was well aware that the new branch leader was in town. He’d been the one to kill Hyuk – his own cousin – and he knew that the guy wouldn’t be leaving until his brother’s murder had been avenged.

Seungcheol had a sneaking suspicion that the Mins had already found them and were just biding their time, waiting for the opportune moment to strike. That’s what they did. They waited until their nemesis was at his weakest.

And Seungcheol was definitely at his weakest. They had to move fast.

The cold wasn’t nearly as unforgiving as it had been over the past couple of days but he shrugged on his jacket anyway, marching to the front doors and preparing for the short walk to the chop shop.

Soonyoung was usually there at this time. If somebody needed to be found then that kid would be the one to find them.

He’d been born in a ditch at the side of the road and spent the entirety of his childhood without a roof over his head or a hot meal to end his day. After his mother died, he’d practically been raised by the homeless network.

It had turned him into one of the scrappiest, stubbornest, most street-smart people Seungcheol had ever met. He had no fighting technique but, when it came down to it, he could snap a guy’s neck with his bare hands if that’s what he needed to do to survive.

He had connections. Tonnes of them. Whatever his leader asked for, he knew a guy who could get it. And if he didn’t know a guy who could get it, he knew a guy who knew a guy who could get it.

Seungcheol paused mid-stride, senses already on alert at the sight of Jihoon leaning against the wall just beside the door, eyes closed, face screwed up and breaths deliberately controlled.

He was pale, paler than usual, and looked as if he was about to vomit.

“Jihoon?” Seungcheol called out as he approached. “What’s wrong?”

The hacker’s eyes snapped open and he scramble to compose himself and pretend he wasn’t about to fall over would have been hideously obvious even to an eye that wasn’t as trained as Seungcheol’s.

“My server crashed,” he babbled, eye movements erratic and completely frazzled.

“How? Has that happened before?”

“It doesn’t usually but someone got the remote access code and has been flooding my server with messages.”

Seungcheol cursed under his breath, wondering how the fuck the world could still be throwing things at them after everything they had endured already.

“I’m headed to the chop shop to see Soonyoung,” he announced tiredly, pawing at his eye with his knuckles. “Ask I.M if you can get on his server for the day.”

Jihoon nodded, lips forming incoherent shapes as though desperately trying to convince himself of something, and Seungcheol knew that nothing he did could help so he reached for the door.

And Jihoon panicked.

“You don’t want to go outside.” 

“I don’t?”

Jihoon shook his head, his movements stiff and robotic, and Seungcheol’s wariness had turned into flat-out alarm.

“What’s going on, Jihoon?”

Jihoon had never been very good at expressing himself through much more than curse-spattered temper tantrums and shooting things that were smaller than him which, mercifully for the rest of them, wasn’t much.

Seungcheol had found him after he tried to hack into the chop shop servers. Hyunwoo had his own tech gremlin by the name of I.M who’d managed to sound the alarm and they had agreed to let Seungcheol take the menace off their hands.

Since then, Jihoon hadn’t left his side. He never contributed to any plans or recon missions, he was perfectly content with providing intel, he never left the base and followed each and every order down to the letter.

Never – not once – had he tried to stop any of them from doing what they wanted and that was how Seungcheol knew something very, very serious had happened.

Before he could question Jihoon further, however, Chan came trudged down the corridor with his shoulders slumping and his head hanging low.

“Hey … morning,” he mumbled, wiggling past the obstacles and reaching for the door.

He was already dressed for the day in cargo pants, a thermal jacket slung over his arm and a gun sitting comfortably in its holster on his hip, and Jihoon didn’t have time to stop him from eradicating that final barrier between them and the outside world.

The wind swept up, blasting all three of them with the icy temperature and something else as well. A smell of some sort. A smell that held a striking resemblance to barbecued meat.

Seungcheol shuffled forward, shooting a sideways glance at Jihoon when the boy spat several expletives and turned away with his face in his hands, and only when the leader looked back did he see it.

The plastic tarp bag on the doorstep.

The zipper was already partly undone, exposing half of its contents to the cold.

The human brain is wired to initiate eye contact with another person. The first thing it does when meeting somebody is look at their face. That was how science could tell whether or not people were lying or if they happened to be on the spectrum since standard human behaviour requires eye contact. 

So, naturally, that was exactly where Seungcheol looked first.

The face was unrecognisable. Most of the skin from the lower half had fallen off, leaving it horribly deformed and twisted into a grotesque grin. There was a blob of blackened flesh that would have been a nose at some point and the eyes looked like a fish’s after too long on the grill.

The body itself had been contorted unnaturally, fingers frozen in motionless claws, and the legs were bent so that, if the corpse were to be pulled upright, it could probably fit perfectly into a chair.

Some of the hair still remained although it was disastrously singed and discoloured by soot and smoke and ash made from its own demise.

‘It’. It was an ‘it’. Because it couldn’t be Joshua. There was just no way.

Nothing about this thing, the charred mangled mess of melted clothes, cooked skin and broken bones, could possibly be Joshua. 

“What the fuck is that smell?”

The voice came from behind Seungcheol and he didn’t possess the clarity of mind to identify who it belonged to. The odour he had assumed to be wafting from a nearby campfire was now akin to the sickly-sweet scent of a well-seasoned steak.

“What the fuck?”

Everybody else was up now, slowly gravitating towards the source of the smell with intrigued expressions and innocently ignorant questions and, any minute now, they were going to see what Seungcheol was seeing.

“Get back in …” he ordered, turning on his heel and shoving Chan into Seungkwan’s arms on the other side of the threshold. “Go! All of you! There’s nothing to see here!”

“Is that …?”

Seungcheol was losing it. His mind felt clouded, a sharp pain was drilling against the inside of his skull, he could hear the murmuring voices from in front of him, each of them trying to obtain the information they craved but would instantly wish they didn’t have once it was theirs.

“Everyone, get the fuck back in!” Seungcheol roared, practically wrestling Wonwoo through the door and slamming it behind them.

He was losing it. His life. His reality. Everything was slipping from his fingers.

He wasn’t delusional. He hadn’t convinced himself that Joshua had somehow survived being tortured for twenty-four hours straight and then set on fire or anything equally ridiculous, but seeing that body … that  _ thing  _ had solidified the reality of the tragedy once and for all and his mind just wasn’t ready for that. 

“Jihoon,” he gasped, refusing to look at anything but the floor. “Call the chop shop. Get Shownu on this. Chan, go down to the med bay and stay with Hansol. Don’t tell him anything. Junhui, get onto Soonyoung. We still have Mins to find. Everybody else, get to your duties!”

The bewildered mutters continued even as the crowd of spectators slowly began to dissipate but only one voice managed to slice through the chaos and make it to Seungcheol’s ears with perfect clarity.

“Cheol?”

Jeonghan’s soft tone calling his name should have brought him an inordinate amount of comfort but it was just too much … too soon. He couldn’t look at Jeonghan right now.

“Not now, Hannie,” he shot back. “Go with Minghao and Mingyu. Whatever they’re doing today … just go with them.”

He could hear Junhui tutting somewhere off to his right side but he paid no attention to it. He paid no attention to anything but the sound of Joshua’s screams in the back of his head.

His best friend had been reduced to a faceless lump of charcoal, stuffed into a body bag and dumped out in the snow just to torture them with the knowledge that he'd died a most excruciating death.

And Seungcheol couldn’t take it.


	20. Mins In Funky Town

Jeonghan still possessed the distant memory of one of the only times his mother had ever been nice to him.

He’d been five at the time and in desperate need of a haircut, his fringe tumbling into his eyes and prompting the other boys in his class to give it several harsh tugs during recess. Also, his father hated it, and that was the deciding factor.

His mother loved his hair. It was probably the only thing she did love about him. Thick, slightly wavy, a natural dark brown colour instead of boring old black like hers. She would spend several moments at a time carding her fingers through it on the rare occasion that she actually tucked him into bed. 

“Oh …” she had tsked, combing a stray lock behind his ear. “I wish your father would let you grow it out. It’s so pretty.”

She’d kissed him goodnight and then marched him straight to the barbers the next day where the bearded man with the tattoos running up and down his arms had brought the scissors to his ponytail and sliced it right off.

“There,” his mother had smiled, pinching his cheeks. “You’re a guy again. I always wished I’d had a girl but I shudder to think of all the boy talks I’d have had to have with her.”

She had actually shivered and, at the time, Jeonghan had beamed with pride. He’d thought she was happy she’d had him but, looking back on it as an adult, he realised his existence had never brought her anything but regret.

“Good thing I have a little boy,” she’d said. “Men would do nothing but break your heart.”

Neither of them had known at that point that Jeonghan would grow up to be … well, bisexual … or gay … he didn’t exactly know what he was. But he liked Seungcheol. He loved Seungcheol. And although Seungcheol had assured him just two days ago that he loved him, too, Jeonghan wasn’t so sure anymore.

Men would do nothing but break your heart.

For two days, he’d been ignored. For two days, he’d been babysat by whichever random name Seungcheol had come up with on the spot. Mingyu, Minghao, Seokmin, he’d even been palmed off on Jihoon at one point. 

Jeonghan understood that things were happening, that everybody was working their asses off to ensure that Joshua’s death would be the last fatality in their ranks, but was it really so hard for Seungcheol to take one minute to speak to him?

Was it really so impossible to check up on him in person instead of sending Junhui to do it for him?

“Why the fuck is he here?”

Jeonghan winced at the harshness to the tone but kept his mouth shut and his gaze on the floor in front of him, trying to draw as little attention as possible from the boy strapped to the bed.

“Hansol …” came Seokmin’s exhausted sigh. “Come on, you know I can’t help. Just let him, okay?”

“I can do it myself if you let me out of these things.”

Another sigh, “You know I can’t do that.”

Hansol quite literally growled in frustration, giving the leather cuffs that kept him tethered to the mattress an infuriated rattle and refusing to listen to Seokmin’s gentle attempts to calm him down enough for the doctor to approach.

Jeonghan sort of kind of definitely wished that Junhui or Wonwoo was there for his safety. Hansol looked as if he could and may very well try to smash his skull in. Even with the burns that still encompassed 30% of his body, he had nothing but murder in his eyes.

“Just let him put it back in,” Seokmin pleaded and, at last, with a few explicit mutterings under his breath, Hansol quietened down. 

He’d had to be restrained, not just to prevent him from murdering Jeonghan on the spot, but because his little meltdown had reopened several of his wounds and to ensure that he didn’t pick up an infection, he’d needed to be strapped down.

As a result, he’d managed to wrench his shoulder out of place while struggling to get free so, naturally, Seokmin had called Jeonghan down from his room to take care of it.

He approached, hesitantly, feeling like he was walking into the lion’s den when the only thing keeping those gigantic jaws from clamping down on top of him was a thin, flimsy dog leash. And, just to make matters worse, Hansol’s lip curled in disgust the moment he stepped into view.

“I’ll need to take that arm out of the cuff,” Jeonghan said softly, gesturing towards the injured limb.

Seokmin levelled Hansol with a very pointed look of warning before unfastening the leather belt from around his left wrist. A dislocated joint hurt but, for the most part, it was bearable and Hansol didn’t seem to be in excruciating pain but there was no way it was comfortable.

Jeonghan carefully lifted the arm, murmuring a quiet apology when Hansol grimaced in pain.

“Breathe in on the count of three.”

The boy practically snarled at him, lips clenched shut and nostrils flaring and, in that moment, he looked like Joshua. Jeonghan abruptly pushed that thought aside though. He just couldn’t right now.

“One … two … three.”

Hansol let a growling grunt slip through his gritted teeth as his shoulder slipped back into place with a resounding pop.

“Fuck …” he hissed, closing his eyes and panting slightly.

“Where the fuck are your manners?” Seokmin scolded, flicking the boy in the forehead as Jeonghan took a step back, wary of Hansol’s free hand.

“I don’t have to thank Cheol’s fuck toy for anything?”

That earned him another flick between the eyes and the leather cuff back around his wrist.

“I’m jus-just gonna go …” Jeonghan stammered, already halfway towards the door.

“Yeah … Fucking run!” Hansol sneered after him, the restraints clanking against the bed as he fought them. “Run like you always do, _Hannie!"_

Jeonghan wanted to hit him. He wanted to grab the book on the counter right in front of him and smack the shit out of the little brat. He knew he was fucked up, but Hansol was, too.

Hansol had been the one lying in that bed when he could have been out there being useful, finding a way to avenge the very person he was so angry about. He had been lying in that bed because, for him, anger was easier than grief.

“Yeah, I’m running!” Jeonghan snapped, whirling around to glare at the kid with as much resentment as he could muster. “And you’re strapped to a bed because you’re a fucking child who can’t even deal with his own feelings!”

Seokmin’s eyes were as wide as saucers, mouth hanging agape at the sudden outburst, but Jeonghan didn’t care. His anger had been building up for days and he finally had the chance to let it out.

“Everyone on this base lost Shua!” he continued to rage. “Not just you! But instead of doing what they’re supposed to be doing, half of them have to babysit you and the other half can’t do their fucking jobs because they’re so worried for you! And Cheol thinks he isn’t good enough for you so why can’t you just grow the fuck up, you fucking asshole!”

His chest felt uncomfortably tight and there were tears on his face but he dashed them aside with the back of his hand, drawing great seething breaths in through his nose.

“Go ahead and blame me because both Cheol and Shua chose to save me,” he hissed. “But fucking do it like a man! Get up, face your fucking feelings and help get the bastards who did this like the rest of us are trying to do!”

His voice cracked.

“Being angry won’t bring him back, Hansol!”

And with that, he was gone, without checking if any of his words had gotten through.

He couldn’t deny that he would gladly allow the kid to beat the holy out of him if that’s what would make him feel better because Jeonghan knew what it was like to lose something. To lose someone.

It felt like everybody was leaving him, one after the other. Hyuk was shot right in front of him. He’d listened to Joshua burning to death. And now he’d lost Seungcheol, too, because the moment that Joshua died, part of Seungcheol died with him. 

Jeonghan was a hypocrite for telling Hansol he was dealing with his grief like a child because that’s exactly what he himself was guilty of. He was shutting off, hiding from everybody else, holing up in his room and refusing to eat.

He knew he’d been making Junhui’s week so much harder when he was already trying to run a team with a leader who’d given up and a doctor who wouldn’t even take a drink of water.

Jeonghan could see the shadows beneath Junhui’s eyes getting a little darker every time he begged him to take a bite of something – anything – but Jeonghan just couldn’t bring himself to eat.

He wanted to waste away. He wanted to just stop breathing. He wanted to evaporate into thin air. But then Joshua’s death would have been for nothing. So he had to stay alive for a little longer … just long enough to make sure Seungcheol was safe.

\-----------------------

Seungcheol had been right. The Mins had definitely known how to find them and now they had.

“Cheol, you have to know this is a trap,” Junhui muttered, keeping his voice low so the huge gunman standing a few feet away wouldn’t be able to hear. “You get in that car and you’re signing your own death warrant.”

Seungcheol looked at him. He’d definitely had better days and the leader knew he couldn’t have appeared much healthier but he also knew that he hadn’t exactly been of much help over the previous week.

Junhui had basically been running operations on his own. He’d been tending to Minghao, to Hansol and to Jeonghan on top of everything else. On top of grieving for Joshua in his own personal way. 

“I know,” Seungcheol said shortly. “But what am I supposed to do? Decline an invitation from the leader of the Mins?”

Junhui’s eyes were drawn into slits and his displeasure at the situation was evident in every feature of his face. But, then again, this had been what they wanted. To find the Mins. Apparently, they hadn’t given enough thought to what they would do once that happened.

The head of Korea’s most powerful gang had sent a vehicle and two men who were undoubtedly more than capable of killing him at a moment’s notice.

One of them stood just taller than Seungcheol with deep dimples and a mop of white blonde hair swept smoothly back from his forehead. The other was roughly two inches shorter but heavily built and muscular.

They had asked politely enough for Seungcheol to accompany them and then had stood back, awaiting his decision, but even a civilian would have been able to tell that it didn’t matter what he said. These guys were only being gracious, just as they were trained.

Whether Seungcheol said yes, no, or maybe, he was going to end up in that car. The only factor he had any control over was whether or not he was conscious.

Letting out the breath he’d been holding, he passed his gun and his knife over to Junhui and clapped him on the shoulder.

“Hold the fort here,” he ordered. “Wait for my call and if I don’t come back …”

“I’ll hold the fort _until_ you come back,” Junhui finished firmly. 

Seungcheol gave him a single nod and then walked towards the awaiting vehicle, trying not to think about whether or not this would be the last time he ever saw the outside world again.

The taller of the two men flashed him a dimpled smile and then opened the door, his muscles flexing beneath the sleeve of his suit and proving to Seungcheol that he had made the right decision in not trying to run. 

He wasn’t blindfolded, cuffed or threatened in any way but, frankly, that wouldn’t have been necessary as far as Seungcheol was concerned.

He knew these people. He’d trained with their underlings. He’d long since learned the ways of the Mins and would never dare cross paths with one on purpose for fear of ending up like their many victims.

But the current circumstances hadn’t exactly been in his control.

The car stopped on the outskirts of a park and it allowed Seungcheol to breathe a little easier. A public place meant they had no intention of killing him. Although, that could very well change in the blink of an eye if they weren’t satisfied with what he had to say.

The same dimpled guy was the one to open the door again, motioning for him to follow his partner up the path and Seungcheol obeyed silently, keeping his eyes trained on the back of the man’s silky black head as they cut through the nature trail and approached a large stone fountain.

There was already a cluster of smartly-dressed men circled around it, each with a gun on his belt and his hands folded in front of him, and only then did Seungcheol come face to face with the notorious Min leader. 

The other guards were all bigger, taller and more muscled than he was and it would only take one of them to bring the outsider to his knees.

Seungcheol had already been aware that, genetically, the Mins were never truly large people. They were all descended from one blood line that seemed incapable of breeding anything other than short, pale and ruthlessly vicious individuals.

Jeonghan’s friend, Hyuk, had fit that description perfectly and, had Seungcheol been looking hard enough, he probably would have been able to tell he was a Min without having any prior knowledge. Therefore, it was no shock to him that their ringleader was a small man.

Aside from his shrunken height, slight build and milky white skin, his hair had been dyed a blackish blue colour and the tail of his vibrantly red dragon tattoo was inked along the flesh of his neck. 

He appeared just as Seungcheol remembered; deceptively docile with his soft features and thin lips and the way he was sitting at the edge of the fountain with his knees drawn up to his chest, making gentle ripples in the water with a twig.

One of his guards leaned down to whisper something in his ear before stepping back and the man heaved a deep sigh that hinted at an emotion akin to boredom.

Seungcheol didn’t quite know what he should be doing at this point. Grovelling, maybe. Bowing, likely. But before he could come to a decision, Min made one for him.

“Sit, Mr Coups,” he commanded in a low, gravelly voice, and Seungcheol wasted no time settling himself on the edge of the fountain.

There was a school of koi fish wriggling about in the water. He’d never realised that before.

“It would appear that a situation has arisen in your territory,” Min started without looking up from the giant scally fish that chased his twig, clearly satisfied that his guards were on the fullest alert. “A situation that resulted in my brother being killed.”

Seungcheol gulped, “Honourable Min … Sir, I would never …”

“And yet it happened on your turf and is, therefore, your responsibility,” his superior calmly interrupted. “Tell me, Mr Coups. What would you have me do? You are of the Choi family in Daegu, are you not?” 

He asked although it was clear that he knew exactly who Seungcheol was.

“Yes, sir.”

At this point, the conversation could go either way and Seungcheol’s heart was somewhere in his throat. He held nothing but the highest respect for this family and as badly as he’d wanted to quit, leave, run or hide, he didn’t want to suffer at their hands.

Because they wouldn’t just kill him. It was Min Junki after all. That was a serious offence.

“Well, you should know that the murder of a family member is punishable by death … for both you and your team.”

Seungcheol’s mind had conveniently erased that part from his memory.

He’d known that if he was caught before he could prove his innocence, he would be executed but the rest of his unit was a completely different story.

The Mins sometimes kept slaves and every single one of Seungcheol’s kids would prove themselves to be an asset in some way. And then there was Jeonghan. He would be snapped up almost immediately and appointed as someone in the head branch’s personal doctor.

If he was lucky, they may even send him back to finish his residency.

That was what Seungcheol had wanted for them if he didn't manage to clear his name. 

“Yes, Honourable Min, sir. I’m aware.”

There was the tell tale click of a gun’s safety catch and then the cool sensation of steel at the base of his neck. He hadn’t even realised one of the guards had moved up behind him.

“So, tell me why I shouldn’t kill you right now?” Min snapped, his voice suddenly cold as he finally looked up from the water.

His eyes were fathomless. Dark. And they burrowed deeper and deeper into Seungcheol’s soul as their owner cocked his head in a bird-like manner.

“I … I …”

“I didn’t take you for the type to scare, Mr Coups.”

“I-It’s been a long couple of days, sir.”

Min gave a slight chuckle at that. Somewhere high above ground, a bird was chirping cheerfully, clearly completely oblivious to Seungcheol’s impending demise.

“I’m grieving the loss of my brother, my men … and my cousin,” Min reminded him, turning his attention back to the way the sun made the water shimmer. 

He had been the one to kill his own cousin but that was out of duty, not because he particularly wanted to. 

“I don’t wish to carry out an execution today, Mr Coups.”

Seungcheol’s heart leapt but he managed to keep his expression neutral and composed.

“I have reason to believe there is another gang rising in the area who have a very poor sense of business etiquette. Can you confirm?”

“Yes, sir,” Seungcheol nodded at once. “Sungjong’s gang. They’re small in number but dangerous. They would be the ones responsible for the death of your brother.”

Min’s eyes hardened at the mention of his late sibling, “That is a serious accusation, Mr Coups.”

“I can prove it, Sir. My tech guy has it all on video and we have an eye witness that Sungjong has been trying to eradicate. He … He ki …”

He couldn’t say it. His voice was cracking and he couldn’t afford to show weakness in front of these people. Steeling himself, blocking out the screams in his head, he took a breath and continued.

“He killed my second. He set him on fire, made my whole team listen as he burned to death and then dumped his body right on our doorstep, Sir. He wants you to get rid of me so his gang can grow.”

There was a moment of absolute silence and Seungcheol couldn’t tell if the birds had stopped chirping out of respect for Joshua or if his own hearing had just decided to cut out as he awaited Min’s response.

Either way, he was thankful that the distorted cries of agony were not what filled his head. Although, he would take that over the vision of that charred corpse discarded in the snow.

Min rested a tender hand on Seungcheol’s shoulder and he almost flinched. An act of kindness, a gesture of compassion, was not what he had been expecting. At all.

Seungcheol had heard stories of this man. He was like a ghost, a shadow. He came and went without leaving a trace. The only evidence that he’d been there at all were the holes he left behind.

He didn’t do face-to-face meetings, something that everybody should be grateful for, and there were even rumours that he didn’t exist. He was the story parents told to their badly-behaved children and yet here was Seungcheol, sitting an inch away from him with his hand on his shoulder as he felt the first of many humiliating tears slip from his eyes.

He had cried more in the past three days than he had in the last ten years.

“I know what it’s like Mr Coups,” Min told him, tightening his grip. “I won’t say it gets easier. I watched many of my men die. I’ve had to kill a few myself. And I buried my own flesh and blood only a month ago. I know what it’s like.” 

He gave a flick of his finger and the barrel of the gun instantly disappeared from Seungcheol’s neck.

“I will give you an hour to produce this video and eye witness. I will send the same men to you in exactly sixty minutes, no more, no less. If you run, if you hide or if you try to fight then I will be forced to kill you, Choi Seungcheol.”

It was a better deal than he could ever have asked for.

“Thank you, Honourable Min, sir,” Seungcheol choked, bowing respectfully as he backed away.

A smirk graced the pale man’s lips as he stood from the edge of the fountain. If it was possible, he looked even smaller when he was upright than he did when he was sitting.

“Honourable Min is much too formal for brothers in arms, Mr Coups,” he smirked. “Please call me Min Suga.” 

\--------------------------

The little spat with Hansol a few hours previously had quite literally sucked the last bit of strength Jeonghan had kept in reserve. His legs gave a violent wobble as soon as he got the med bay doors shut and he probably would have keeled over if Chan hadn’t been walking by.

He felt dazed, like he was walking on air, somewhere between tipsy and buzzed, as the kid took him by the elbow and led him down the hall. He was well aware that he should probably eat something but just the thought of it had the memory of Joshua’s screams rolling through his head.

Chan didn’t speak. He didn’t look like he was even capable of speaking. Instead, he just escorted Jeonghan to his next babysitter.

Jihoon was currently crouched underneath the table in his room, spitting swears as he tried to connect an external drive to his fixed server … or something like that. He’d been explaining the process but Jeonghan had involuntarily stopped listening, his body floating somewhere between sleep and wakefulness.

“Just wait until I catch the fucker,” he mumbled as his systems unfroze and the machine came back to life.

He crawled out from beneath the table and raised himself up on his knees to assess the monitor and, almost instantly, the screen was bombarded with pop ups and messages and windows packed with jumbled words.

Jihoon swore again as the entire server crashed for the umpteenth time and he was forced to return to the cave beneath his desk, “Fucking … cock sucker … motherfucker … I’ll kill him when I find him … whoever this fucker is, he’s going down.”

Jeonghan couldn’t be bothered to engage and it wasn’t like he would actually be of any use anyway. Hyuk had always called him the anti-tech after that time he’d managed to crash a mac book pro within an hour of buying it.

He’d also managed to shut down the entire school library system by mistakenly deleting a series of code that had flickered across the screen after he’d hit a few keys at once. Then there was also that time he couldn’t figure out how to text on his new phone for almost a week.

It was best he kept his arms tucked beneath him, away from the technology, as Jihoon worked.

“Jihoon!”

Jeonghan felt his shoulders meet his ears as he heard the sharp snap of Seungcheol’s voice slicing through the silence but, before he had time to prepare to see the one person who had been avoiding him most religiously, the man himself was striding through the door with Junhui not far behind.

“Jihoon …” he gasped out. “Tell me you have the servers back up. I need that video now. We’ve made contact with the Mins.”

Jeonghan tried not to move or breathe. It seemed like Seungcheol hadn’t spotted him yet where he was curled up on a chair in the corner of the room and he was pretty determined to keep it that way for as long as possible.

“No … I fucking haven’t!” Jihoon called, voice slightly muffled from under the table.

“Well, you need to in the next few minutes. If you don’t have it by five, we’re all in a fuck tonne of trouble.”

“I’m fucking working on it!” Jihoon screamed back. 

The shouting was doing nothing for Jeonghan’s headache. He wanted to lean over, prop himself against the wall and take a nap, a strange reaction seeing as Seungcheol had just said he’d managed to communicate with the Mins and therefore Jeonghan would be needed relatively soon, but he wasn’t functioning properly anymore. 

So he shook his head, trying to rid himself of the fuzzy feeling. He really should eat. Maybe get a cup of coffee or something. Something to return the colour to his face and straighten his mind out.

“Got it!” Jihoon exclaimed triumphantly, crawling back up to his chair. “I rerouted so not everything will come in through the same servers. Whoever the fuck got my remote access code is gonna be in for a world of hurt. I’m gonna fuck their lives up.”

“Okay, yes,” Seungcheol dismissed through gritted teeth, raking his fingers through his dishevelled hair. “But can you please do that after you’ve given me the video?”

“Sure thing, boss,” Jihoon grunted, completely ignoring the passive aggression in his leader’s tone.

Seungcheol didn’t look like he was doing very well. Jeonghan had only been separated from him a couple of days but, already, his hair was overgrown and in desperate need of a brushing, his eyes were puffier than usual and his lips were chapped like he’d been chewing on them. 

Beside him, Junhui gave the room a quick scan and his gaze landed on Jeonghan. His eyes shot up and down, giving his patient the once over, and then narrowed in exasperated displeasure.

That morning, Jeonghan had promised to shower and at least try to eat something. The showering he’d done … sort of … if you could count squeezing shampoo over his head and standing under the spray with his arms braced against the walls either side of him until the suds had disappeared down the drain.

“Cheol, you handle this,” Junhui said, already reaching a hand out for Jeonghan to take. “I’ll go brief Hannie.”

Jeonghan wasn’t exactly sure what he was going to be briefed for but anything was better than sitting here, alone with his thoughts, so he took the offering and uncurled himself from his chair.

“Jesus … Fuck!” Jihoon cursed yet again as another barrage of messages infiltrated his screen.

He abandoned the machine completely and switched to a laptop, sticking a flashdrive into the outlet and hammering a couple of keys.

“You’ll have to take the choppy version,” he shot over his shoulder. “There are several files on this from security cams up to the time of the crime, then they go out and then Jeonghan’s video is the last. That one has the actual execution.”

“That will do. I just need it,” Seungcheol barked impatiently and Jeonghan couldn’t help but flinch at the harshness to his tone.

Instantly, all eyes in the room were upon him and he rubbed his arms self-consciously, trying to flatten the goosebumps that had risen along his skin, “Uh … sorry …”

Seungcheol’s eyes lingered on him a little longer than would have been natural but Jeonghan ignored it. He was probably imagining things anyway, hoping that Seungcheol hadn’t completely forgotten the words they’d exchanged before … everything.

Jihoon managed to upload the files and pass the drive to Seungcheol before turning back to desktop and skimming through the new messages. 

“He’s fucking bullying me,” he growled as he started the laborious task of deleting all the tabs. “This fucker is a bully.”

Jeonghan found himself glancing up at the screen as Junhui pulled him towards the door and, as far as he could tell, there was no bullying going on. It was just weird.

For one, the messages were all in English instead of Korean. There were a few recognisable words and then a few that just didn’t seem to belong with their adjacent companions. Muffins and something about mercury, a foreign word Jeonghan only picked up in med school.

Hansol could probably read it but Jeonghan was in no hurry to make that particular suggestion.

Just milliseconds before Jihoon clicked the tiny red X in the corner of one of the boxes, Jeonghan’s heart skipped a beat and every single one of his senses immediately went into overdrive.

“No …” he mumbled, wriggling out of Junhui’s grip and stumbling forwards until his face was just a few inches from the screen. “Wait … Bring it back …”

He wasn’t imagining things. He couldn’t be imagining things. Please, God, don’t let him be imagining things.

“I can’t,” Jihoon shot back in bewilderment. “I’m deleting them. But they’re all the same, just with the words in different orders.”

And, sure enough, when the next one sprang onto the screen, the words ‘muffin’ and ‘mercury’ were still present, accompanied by ‘shower’, ‘prickly cactus’ and …

“Funky town …” Jeonghan whispered. 

“What?”

“We can do that later,” came Seungcheol’s voice from behind him. “Junhui, brief him. We only have about fifteen minutes left.”

Jeonghan wasn’t listening. Jeonghan didn’t give a fuck. He couldn’t care less what was happening in fifteen minutes that was apparently so important that it couldn’t wait a single second because this, what was right in front of him, was singularly the most miraculous discovery he’d ever made.

“Come on, Hannie,” Junhui murmured, sliding his arm around Jeonghan’s waist and trying to pull him away from the computer. “Let’s see if we can get some tea in you before we leave. You look like you’re about to pass out and you aren’t making any sense.”

On the contrary, Jeonghan’s mind hadn’t felt this clear in days. An unfamiliar grin split his exhausted face in two and he couldn’t hold back the shout of laughter that exploded from his throat.

“That sneaky bastard!” he cried, slamming his palms against the table. “That bastard!”

“Hannie … baby …” Seungcheol murmured, approaching with a sympathetic frown, and Jeonghan was too stunned and ecstatic to notice the return of the pet name. “Please, this isn’t the time to break down.”

They thought he was losing it and, granted, he wasn’t exactly acting like the sanest person in the room but … the messages … the fucking messages!

“No … No, you don’t get it … Funky town!” he shouted gleefully, turning to the others and repeating it like its meaning was obvious. “He’s in funky town! He told me you didn’t use a code! I bet he’s happy I suggested it now!”

Tears were leaking from the corners of his eyes and he wasn’t sure whether it was from all the laughing or from all the relief that was suddenly flooding his mind.

“Baby, what are you talking about?” Seungcheol said, taking Jeonghan by the shoulders and trying to get him to make eye contact.

He couldn’t focus. His vision was blurry. His pupils were probably dilated but he didn’t care. He couldn’t care.

“Shua …” he whispered, still smiling and crying like a madman. “Shua … he’s in funky town.”

As soon as that name left his lips, he saw Seungcheol’s eyes darken, saw the pain returning to the inky wells, saw the way he instantly started building protective walls around himself.

“Han,” he murmured softly. “Shua’s d … Shua’s dead. Okay?”

“No! He isn’t!”

“Yes, he is!” Jihoon interjected, anger flaring in his tone as he glared up at Jeonghan from his chair. “Whatever stunt you’re pulling right now isn’t fucking funny, okay? He’s gone! He’s not coming back and these messages have absolutely nothing to do with him!”

“You’re not listening to me,” Jeonghan dismissed, swatting Seungcheol’s hands from his shoulders and pointing to the screen once more. “When I first got here, Shua and I were joking around. I said you guys should have a code and we came up with all these ridiculous words that meant certain things.”

They were all staring at him as though he’d completely lost the plot. Jihoon still looked furious, Junhui just seemed concerned and Seungcheol was clearly split between worry for his baby and anxiousness that their time was running out.

“See? Muffin means … money, I think. Mercury means … drugs? Yeah. Drugs. Prickly cactus is ‘kill him’, shower is ‘I’m hurt’ and funky town is ‘I’m in trouble’.”

He jabbed his finger at each pixelated word as he spoke, repeatedly glancing up at his audience to ascertain whether or not they were understanding what he was trying to tell them.

“He’s not sending a specific message,” Jeonghan continued when nobody moved to interrupt him. “The words are all jumbled up but he’s trying to tell us he’s alive. Don’t you get it? He knows that I’m the only one who would be able to make sense of this and he’s telling me that he’s not dead!”

It was starting to dawn on them. He could see it now. Something in their eyes that clearly hadn’t been present since they’d heard those bloodcurdling screams from the other end of the phone.

Seungcheol stumbled forwards, dumbly scanning the screen in front of him before looking up at Jeonghan as though he were the most beautiful thing he’d ever seen.

“Han …” he croaked hoarsely. “You’re not fucking with us, right?”

“I’m not fucking with you.”

It was real. He was right. They’d never seen Joshua die. The body had been unidentifiable. It had all been staged, just a sick joke Sungjong had played to mess with their heads and ensure that he could keep Joshua as his own personal information bank without having to worry about anyone coming to rescue him.

“Joshua’s alive.”


	21. Proof To The Contrary

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is Anonymous Introvert telling MinYun that she's beautiful and amazing and so incredibly talented!

“Seungcheol? Seungcheol!”

It was the slap in the face that did it. The flat palm connecting sharply with the peak of his cheekbone was what finally snapped him out of whatever daze he’d allowed himself to drift off to.

“Seungcheol,” Junhui repeated, squeezing his shoulder without even a hint of remorse in the wake of what he’d done. “We have ten minutes.”

He was right. They were living on borrowed time as it was and there just wasn’t space to think about this revelation just yet.

“Okay,” he breathed out, stepping away from the computer screen and gouging at his eyes with the tips of his fingers. “Okay. Okay.”

Joshua was alive. No. There was a possibility that Joshua was alive. A possibility they were basing on a few jumbled words recognised by a boy with hypoglycaemia and sleep deprivation. He couldn’t let himself slip.

But Joshua could be alive.

“Jihoon, trace the IP address. Get me a time stamp on those messages, find out when they were sent and where from. But don’t tell anybody what you’re doing. If it is … If it is Shua then we …”

He couldn’t finish the sentence. There was no time for wishful thinking. There was no time for misplaced hope. If he allowed himself to get it into his head that Joshua was still alive and then it turned out that he’d been wrong, it would crush him.

“I’ve got it,” Jihoon nodded, turning back to his computer and immediately attacking the keyboard with his lightning-fast fingers. “Go do what you need to do. I’ll have all the answers when you get back.”

Seungcheol had no breath left in him to say ‘thank you’. He took Jeonghan’s hand, refusing to think about how long it had been since he’d last done so, and pulled him out into the hallway with Junhui on their tail.

“There isn’t time,” the interim second hissed, checking his watch and grimacing. “You'll have to brief him in the car.”

“Okay. Let’s go.”

He didn’t release Jeonghan’s hand. He couldn’t. He needed that contact like he needed air to breathe. He needed something solid and warm and safe and innocent to prove to him that a being like that still existed in this torturous world.

If Joshua really was alive then they had abandoned him. They had left him in the hands of those monsters and turned their backs, grieving his death when his heart was still beating.

Sungjong had wanted to hurt them. Hurt them so badly that they were too paralysed and too numb to defend themselves against what was coming. And then he had kept him, chained up like an animal, convinced that nobody was going to save him, so he could rip information from his bleeding body.

But Seungcheol couldn’t think about that. He couldn’t be distracted. He had to get his head on straight and make sure that everything went the way it needed to go so that he, Jeonghan, his team and, hopefully, Joshua would survive.

Just as he’d expected, the Mins’ car was already waiting for them in the road outside, the muscular men in the business suits standing on either side of the door with their hands folded neatly in front of them.

“Okay,” Seungcheol called out. “I’ve got the evidence.”

He felt Jeonghan stiffen beside him, clearly intimidated by the nameless people who were opening the door to an unfamiliar car and gesturing for them to climb inside so they could be carted off to an unknown location.

“It’s okay,” he told him, giving his hand a squeeze. “I got you. And as long as I got you, they’re not going to hurt you.”

Jeonghan gulped, Adam’s apple bobbing almost comically against his throat, but he nodded and Seungcheol felt warmth blossoming in the pit of his stomach.

After everything he’d put that boy through – abducting him, handcuffing him to a bed, forcing him to abandon his best friend’s body, deliberately ignoring him when he was already punishing himself – Jeonghan still trusted him with his life.

He rested a hand against the doctor’s lower back and gently steered him into the car, ensuring he was seated before he turned to Junhui with his mouth stretched in a grim line.

“With any luck, we should be back within the hour. I need you with Jihoon on this. I need you to find out if Shua really sent those messages and I need you to keep it from everybody else. Right now, they believe he’s dead and it needs to stay that way until we have proof to the contrary. Have you got that?”

“Yes, sir,” Junhui nodded solemnly. “Be safe and protect that doctor.”

Seungcheol glanced over his shoulder to see Jeonghan watching them from the backseat of the car, “That’s a given, isn’t it?”

Junhui let out a short, breathy chuckle, “You are so whipped.”

“Shut up.”

“Good luck.”

“You, too.”

He spun on his heel and ducked into the car, slotting his arm around Jeonghan’s shoulders and pulling him right up against his own body as Min’s men climbed into the front seats and started the engine.

“What’s happening?” Jeonghan whispered, his face paper white and his eye movements still a little erratic. “Where are we going?”

Not for the first time, Seungcheol could feel guilt gnawing away at his insides. The doctor was doing a pretty good job of hiding it but he was frightened, his fingernails picking at each other in his lap and his gaze frequently snapping towards the gunmen in front of him.

Seungcheol never should have abandoned him. They’d all been suffering. They’d all been grieving. Jeonghan had needed him and, although he was reluctant as hell to admit it, he had needed Jeonghan, too.

He just hadn’t been able to look at him after what had happened to Joshua.

But he was looking at him now. And suddenly he remembered just how fucking beautiful he was.

“We’re going to see the head of the Mins,” he murmured back, tightening his grip around the boy’s shoulders when his eyes bulged. “But it’s okay. I swear to you, baby, it is okay. He’s going to watch the video and then he’s going to ask you some questions but all you need to do is tell the truth.”

Jeonghan’s hand closed on his thigh, nails digging in a little deeper than could be classified as harmless, but Seungcheol didn’t care.

“He killed Hyuk …” he gasped, his voice wavering ever so slightly as he spoke his friend’s name. “Right in front of me … I saw him …”

Seungcheol had forgotten that part.

“I know, and I’m so sorry, baby. I’m so sorry but this is the only way we get to live, okay? This is the only way all of us get to live and I’m going to be there the entire time. I’m going to be there. You’re not going to get hurt.”

But he’d made a promise like that once before, hadn’t he? To Joshua. ‘We’re gonna get you out of here and then we’re gonna go for a drink’. He hadn’t been able to protect his second so was he really so certain that he could protect his boyfriend?

Was that what he was?

His boyfriend?

Too complicated. Too distracting. Too irrelevant. They had a job to do now. Not just for themselves and for Joshua but for everybody else as well.

Chan was not going back to that crack house. Jihoon was not going back to stealing from loan sharks. Seungkwan was not going back to the family of that disgusting abusive drunk of an ex-husband who’d once broken his jaw just so that he would be ‘too ugly’ for anyone else to want him.

“Do you blame me?” Jeonghan rasped, completely out of the blue and coming as such a shock to Seungcheol that he almost choked on his own tongue.

“What?”

“Do you blame me?” the boy repeated, both hands clenched in the material of the leader’s pant leg. “For what happened to Shua? Do you blame me?”

“No,” Seungcheol said without a second’s hesitation. “Not once. Never. I’m the one who made that choice. Not you.”

The car drew to a smooth stop, the familiar green and brown of the public park’s welcome sign visible through the windshield, and the driver shot a sombre, “we’re here” over his shoulder.

The two of them got out of the car and one circled around, preparing to open the door, and Seungcheol took advantage of that split second where he and Jeonghan were completely alone to take the doctor’s face in his hands and bring their lips together.

“I’m going to keep you safe,” he whispered, combing a stray lock of hair behind the boy’s ear. “And then, if Shua’s alive, I’m gonna go get him. Okay?”

“Okay.”

There was the click of the doors and Seungcheol was the first to exit the vehicle, keeping a firm grip on Jeonghan’s hand as he pulled him out after. He had to give the kid credit. His face bore no trace of fear or even anticipation. He was blank as a slate.

They started walking, following the Min men up the same path he’d been led just a few hours previously, and when they were once again standing in front of the fountain, Seungcheol took the subtlest step to the right so that his body was just about shielding Jeonghan’s.

If somebody fired a gun at them at that moment, it would do nothing in terms of protection, but it was a warning:  _ touch him and I will end you. _

“You made it,” came Suga’s softly-spoken observation as he stepped out of his ring of protection and approached the newcomers. “I’m glad. I really didn’t want to have to kill you, Coups.”

Jeonghan’s breaths hitched and practically squashed Seungcheol’s fingers in his grip but, other than that, he showed no reaction to meeting the person who had murdered his best friend.

“You have the video?”

Seungcheol nodded, using his free hand to pull the flashdrive from his pocket.

“And I’m guessing this is the witness?”

Seungcheol shuffled a little further to the right, keeping his eyes on the ground and his head bowed as a mark of respect, but he could still feel the smirk that quirked Suga’s lips.

“Protective, I see,” he mused. “You needn’t worry, Coups. I have no interest in him. Only what he can tell me.”

He gave a nod and one of his guards stepped forwards, taking the flashdrive from Seungcheol’s hand and retreating several steps to where a laptop sat on a nearby bench.

“Yoon Jeonghan, isn’t it?” Suga shot in Jeonghan’s direction, drawing Seungcheol’s attention back to the man in front of him.

“Yes,” Jeonghan bit back and Seungcheol almost winced.

They could not afford for Jeonghan to get emotional at a time like this.

“Why don’t you and I have a little chat? I can assure you it won’t take long.”

Jeonghan inhaled, clearly preparing to make some sort of statement, but Seungcheol didn’t give him the chance. He couldn’t give him the chance. He couldn’t let anyone else he loved be taken away by another gang.

“All due respect, Min Suga, sir,” he started, giving Jeonghan’s hand a gentle tug in an attempt to tell him to stay where he was. “But I would really appreciate it if he stays with me. I’m sure you understand.”

Suga arched an eyebrow, that amused smirk never slipping from his face and Seungcheol’s nerves started to tingle.

“Coups,” Jeonghan whispered from behind him. “It’s okay. I can go.”

Seungcheol whipped around to face him, a protest already on his lips but, from just one look at Jeonghan’s face, he knew there was no arguing. Suga wanted Jeonghan alone and he would be willing to take him by force if that was the only way.

“I swear to you, Coups,” Suga called out. “I have no intention of harming him.”

Seungcheol didn’t doubt it. The Mins weren’t that kind of people but, as Jeonghan’s hand left his grip and he watched him following that murderer down a side path, away from the gunman and their flexing muscles, he couldn’t help the bubbling anxiety from building.

The wait was agony.

The guards still had their eyes on his every movement, weapons at the ready just in case he decided to try anything stupid, and the man with the laptop was scrutinising the screen with a furrowed brow and a firm frown of distaste.

Seungcheol only hoped the video quality was good enough. He could only hope that Jeonghan would convey the necessary information. He could only hope that both pieces of evidence he’d provided would be enough to save the lives of himself and his team.

And it was in that moment that Joshua flashed in front of his eyes.

How had he managed to send those messages? He’d been bound to a chair with a bullet wound in his thigh and, from what Sungjong had inferred, half his fingernails had been missing. There was no way he could have got hold of a phone or anything along those lines.

Maybe it wasn’t him. Maybe Sungjong had tortured that code out of him and was using it to try and lure Jeonghan. Maybe none of it was real. Maybe he’d got his hopes up for nothing.

He shook himself. He was being stupid. He was letting the paranoia get to him and it wasn’t going to help anyone. Right now, he knew with certainty that somebody had sent those messages and that somebody had, at one point, been in contact with Joshua.

That meant there was a chance. It may be small as hell but it was still a chance, and Joshua was about the most defiant bastard he’d ever met. If anybody could survive this long in captivity, it was him.

A crunch of breaking twigs had his hand leaping to his belt, momentarily forgetting that he’d left his gun with Junhui, and then Suga was emerging from the undergrowth, his jaw set in fury and his eyes blazing with hatred.

Seungcheol’s breath stood still, his heart ceased to beat, his entire body prickled with unease, but then Jeonghan stepped out onto the path and, suddenly, his lungs were working again.

“Are you okay?” he whispered, looping his fingers around Jeonghan’s wrist and pulling him into a bone-crushing hug. “I know that must have been awful.”

“I’m fine,” Jeonghan mumbled as they drew apart but his hands were shaking, even if it was only slightly.

Reliving that experience, having to describe being cornered and beaten and tied up and then shoved in a trunk, would have done something to his head. He was already tired, he was already hungry and being forced to reiterate his trauma would have only made it worse.

But he was here and Seungcheol had him and the first part was done.

Without casting either of them so much as a side glance, Suga marched straight up to his guard and took the laptop from his hands, clicking one of the keys and witnessing the murder of his big brother unfold right in front of him.

Seungcheol knew what that was like. Watching family die. Listening to them die. Hearing them scream, knowing there was nothing that could be done to help. It was a horrific process but Suga’s expression was emotionless.

“It’s almost over,” Seungcheol promised, keeping his eyes on the Min leader even as he slipped his hand up to cup the back of Jeonghan’s head. “I promise. It’s almost over.”

And then it was.

“Motherfucker …” Suga snarled, shoving the laptop into his underling’s chest and bending his head so far back that his neck was almost at a right angle as he stared at the sky and brought a hand to clench in his hair. “Fucking … Jesus …”

As if somebody flipped a switch, his eyes locked on Seungcheol’s and he was striding forwards with so much ferocity in every step that Seungcheol actually threw himself in front of Jeonghan.

Suga was grieving right now and a grieving man was a dangerous one. Although he’d promised not to lay a finger on either of them, that may very well change in the next few seconds.

But then the gangster stopped, his apoplectic face just a few inches from Seungcheol’s as he snarled out the words, “Everything I’ve seen and heard today is the truth, right?”

“Yes, sir.”

Suga dropped his head between his shoulders and let out a pained sigh, pinching the bridge of his nose before seeming to regain his composure. He clapped Seungcheol on the shoulder and looked him straight in the eye as he said,

“Thank you for your honesty. I am deeply sorry you’ve had to suffer as a result of this man’s actions but I swear to you that he and his followers will no longer be a problem to you or your people.”

“Thank you,” Seungcheol gasped out, dropping into a bow and pulling Jeonghan into one beside him. “Thank you, sir. And I’m truly sorry for your loss.”

He saw the bloodlust in Suga’s eyes. The bloodlust that could very well have been aimed at him had this meeting gone even slightly differently. He had Jeonghan to thank for the fact that now Sungjong would be on the receiving end instead.

Whatever befell that man, he deserved it for what he’d done to Joshua. And then that reminded him.

“Min Suga, sir,” he spoke up, still clutching Jeonghan’s hand as Suga turned around to face him from where he’d been slowly making his way back towards the fountain. “Would I be right in thinking that your men will be planning an attack?”

Suga’s chin lifted ever so slightly, “You would.”

Joshua could be alive. Joshua could be alive. Joshua could be alive.

“Min Suga, sir, today my tech received a message that we think could be from my second. There’s a possibility that Sungjong still has him and, if that’s true, I would like to request that my team and I accompany you.”

Joshua could be alive. Joshua could be alive. Joshua could be alive.

“I know that Sungjong himself is yours to kill,” Seungcheol continued. “And I give you my word that we won’t get in your way. But if my guy is alive, I need to get him back. That’s the only interest I have in this matter.”

He held his breath. His request may very well be denied. The Mins liked to do things their own way and if anybody came between them and their goal, they would be obliterated. Seungcheol asking to join an attack was about as insulting as telling somebody how to do their job.

But Joshua could be alive.

“This second of yours …” Suga started. “You really think he survived?”

Joshua could be alive. Joshua could be alive. Joshua could be alive.

“I need to, Sir.”

Joshua could be alive. Joshua could be alive. Joshua could be alive.

“Then alright. But you and your guys are in and out. You get your man and then you go. The rest is our right.”

“Thank you, sir. Thank you.”

Joshua could be alive. Joshua could be alive. Joshua could be alive.

“We attack as soon as the sun goes down. Don’t get in our way.”

And Seungcheol was coming to get him. 


	22. Go Get Our Boy

Junhui met them at the door, his facial muscles relaxing with relief as soon as he saw them coming and Seungcheol didn’t even bother looking embarrassingly pathetic as he pulled his friend into a one-armed hug.

“I’m guessing it went well then,” Junhui poked, eyeing Jeonghan’s hand interlocked with his leader’s. “Are we in the clear?”

“Not yet. Has Jihoon managed to trace those messages?”

They were no longer under threat of being massacred but they couldn't celebrate when there was still a gaping hole in the ending of their story.

“You should come ask him yourself.”

Seungcheol threw a glance over his shoulder at Jeonghan who simply nodded and then the three of them were marching through the bunker hallways, speed compressed into controlled strides instead of frantic sprints like they wanted.

But, in almost no time at all, the three of them were bursting into the tech room where Jihoon was hunched over the computer, his hair a complete mess as though he’d been repeatedly raking his fingers through it and his brows bunched up between his eyes.

“Jihoon,” Seungcheol blurted. “Tell me you have something.”

Joshua could be alive. And if Joshua was alive then maybe this nightmare wouldn’t have the gruesomely miserable ending that he’d expected it to. If Joshua was alive then maybe Seungcheol could learn to forgive himself for leaving him in that place.

Jihoon glanced up and Seungcheol was shocked to see the glassy sheen in the hacker’s eyes. Almost as if his mind wanted to cry but his body couldn’t process the request.

“It’s him,” he whispered, almost inaudible, and Seungcheol wanted to scream in relief.

“You’re sure?”

“Almost positive,” the kid nodded, returning his attention to the screen and pointing at various lines of code that Seungcheol had no chance of being able to decipher. “All the messages were sent between 9:34 and 9:59 last night. I traced the IP and the signal’s coordinates are within Sungjong’s territory.”

There was a pause as everybody repeated his words over and over in their heads, asking every possible question, unravelling every possible risk and coming to the exact same conclusion either way.

“He’s alive?” Jeonghan croaked hoarsely, eyes rallying between Seungcheol and the computer screen. “He’s really alive?”

“Yes,” Jihoon grunted in grim response. “Or at least he was at 9:59 last night. After that, there’s nothing. If he got caught …”

He didn’t finish the sentence but he didn’t need to for all of them to get the message. Whatever Joshua had used to send those messages, if he’d been found using it, he would have been brutally punished.

They may even have killed him. There was no guarantee that he was still breathing after pulling a stunt like that but Seungcheol had already believed him dead once and then he’d been proved wrong. He wasn’t going to make that mistake again.

“The Mins are attacking Sungjong at sundown,” he conveyed, reaching behind him and groping blindly for Jeonghan’s hand even as his leader-voice made a comeback. “They said that, as long as we don’t get in the way, we can use their firepower as a distraction to get in there and get Shua.”

It was happening. It was really happening. This was it.

“Jihoon, I’m going to need you running the comms. We have to be able to communicate or we’re all going down. Junhui, get everybody rounded up and gathered in the conference room. Don’t mention Shua just yet. I want to be the one to tell them.”

There were nods of approval from both recipients. Jihoon was instantly bringing up cameras in the streets surrounding Sungjong’s base and getting their in-ear systems online to ensure everything was working properly.

Junhui had already left the room, moving as quickly and quietly as he always did whenever something massive was about to go down.

“Jihoon,” Seungcheol called out again, receiving nothing but a hum of acknowledgement. “You’ve got a knife and a gun with you, right?”

“Right.”

“Okay. Lock and barricade the door behind us and keep the CCTV cameras up on your screen. There isn’t going to be anyone here to protect you if anything happens.”

“Got it.”

It was happening. It was really happening. This was it. All that pain, all that violence, all the loss and sadness and devastation had been leading them right up to this very moment.

He started towards the door, tugging Jeonghan into step beside him but, just as his hand was reaching for the knob, Jihoon spoke up.

“Cheol?”

“Yeah.”

“Bring him home. Please.”

If only he could make that promise with absolute certainty that he would be able to keep to it.

“I’ll try,” was all he said before pulling Jeonghan out into the hallway and slamming the door behind them.

Jeonghan was still clinging to his hand, a little bit like a child frightened to leave his mother, but his jaw was clenched and his eyes held no fear and Seungcheol wished more than anything that he could ensure it stayed that way.

“I’m sorry,” he whispered, cupping Jeonghan’s face in his hands and trying to memorise every single perfect little detail. “I’m so sorry. For everything. For what you’ve been through, for what you’ve lost, for what I’ve done to you.”

Jeonghan just blinked back at him, confusion and concern battling for dominance in his expression.

“You’re coming back,” he said, and it wasn’t a question. “You’re getting Shua and you’re coming back.”

And Seungcheol wanted to believe he could confirm that. He wanted to be able to say with absolute confidence that this wasn’t the last time he and Jeonghan were ever going to see each other. He wanted to know for sure that everything he needed to say could be said once he returned.

But he couldn’t.

“I’m sorry,” he repeated instead, threading his fingers through Jeonghan’s hair. “For the way I’ve treated you. I know I made you feel like I blamed you for what happened to Shua and I’m sorry. I’m so, so sorry. And if I come back, I swear to you, Han, I’m going to make it up to you.”

There was a flash of apprehension in Jeonghan’s eyes as though he was realising for the first time that this wasn’t a ‘see you later’ kind of goodbye. Seungcheol expected him to clap back with some kind of refusal, a plea to come back to him or something along those lines but all he got was a gulp and then a forced smile.

“You’d better.”

Jeonghan was feigning confidence. That much was obvious. He was pretending not to care even though Seungcheol could see right through the haze over his eyes and identify the dread that lay beneath the surface.

But, despite all of that, Seungcheol couldn’t help but release a short, breathy laugh.

“Come on,” he said, curling his fingers around Jeonghan’s and leading him straight to the med bay.

Hansol was still tied to the table and it was a sight that actually pained Seungcheol to look at. He hadn’t wanted to do that but he’d genuinely been afraid for the boy’s health and for Jeonghan’s safety.

Seokmin was sorting all their medications in alphabetical order, a clear sign that he was beyond stressed and in desperate need of something productive to do so that he wouldn’t have to think about everything that was going on around him.

At their entrance, however, the both of them looked up and Hansol immediately made a noise of disgust when he saw Jeonghan.

Seungcheol ignored him, addressing Seokmin in a low tone instead.

“We’re going for Sungjong,” he murmured and Seokmin’s eyes widened like a rabbit in the headlights. “Jihoon’s here but the rest of us won’t be. That means you need to lock yourselves in and stay here until we get back, okay?”

The pharmacist nodded.

“And Seokmin? We’re going to have at least one injured when we get back. Can you and Jeonghan be ready for that?”

He glanced at Jeonghan to gain his input, too, but the two of them gave identical murmurs of agreement, Seokmin already scuttling to the cabinets where they kept all the necessary medical equipment.

Even with everything they had, treating Joshua after everything he’d been through was going to be almost as big of a battle as the one they were walking into.

“Hey!” Hansol snapped, giving his cuffs an irritable rattle. “Don’t I get to know what’s going on? Or am I no longer part of this team?”

Seungcheol let out a sharp breath through clenched teeth as he strode over to the bed. For a second, he and Hansol just glared at one another, as if challenging the other to speak up first.

The look of utter shock on the kid’s face when Seungcheol finally reached out to undo the restraints was almost laughable. He sat up, rubbing his wrists and regarding his leader with the deepest suspicion.

“What’s happening?”

“We’re raiding Sungjong’s base,” Seungcheol started and he was more than prepared for the outburst that followed.

“What the fuck? Why didn’t anyone tell me? Give me five minutes and –”

“You’re not coming,” Seungcheol cut him off, planting a hand in the centre of Hansol’s chest and gently pushing him back onto the bed.

“You can’t be fucking serious …”

There wasn’t time for this. Every second he wasted arguing with this cocky teenager was time he could be spending briefing his team. If they weren’t prepared then they might as well be sticking guns in their mouths.

“You’re still healing, Hansol,” the leader snapped, giving the kid his best don’t-fight-this expression. “You’ll get hurt and I can’t allow that. And I also need you here to protect Jeonghan –”

“No fucking way!”

“ _And_ Seokmin.”

He knew that was what would finally do it. No matter how angry Hansol was, no matter how he was grieving or how strong his hatred for Jeonghan was, he wouldn’t dare risk losing another friend. He would pull out his own teeth to keep Seokmin safe and that was exactly what they needed him for.

“I’m gonna give you a gun,” Seungcheol said, staring Hansol directly in the eye to be sure the boy knew how serious he was. “You’re gonna stay here, lock the door and only use it if you have to. Is that understood?”

Hansol was still glaring at him but, finally, he mumbled a bitter, “yes, sir.”

Seungcheol leaned closer, bracing one hand against the mattress to that his face was only a few inches from his friend’s and speaking softly in order to hide his message from Jeonghan and Seokmin as he ground out the words,

“I love you, Sol, and I’m trusting you with Han’s life here. So, I am begging you … Leave him be.”

Telling him about Joshua would be kinder, more humane. It would put him out of his misery and give him the first few dregs of hope he’d felt in weeks but it would also drive him crazy. There was no way he would stay here.

“Can I trust you with Han’s life?”

“Yes,” Hansol snarled, avoiding eye contact and clearly very unhappy about it even as he nodded his consent.

“Good.”

He pulled his own gun from his belt and pressed it into Hansol’s hand, praying that he wasn’t making a mistake as he turned on his heel, wrapped a hand around the back of Jeonghan’s head and brought their lips together.

“I love you,” he whispered, foreheads resting against each other.

“I love you, too.”

“I’ll come back.”

“I know.”

He had to leave after that or he wouldn’t be able to pull himself away. Reeling Seokmin into a quick hug, he repeated his order to lock the doors and then left the room.

\-----------------

Seungcheol's father had a saying: 'survival isn't always about the strongest or the fastest. Sometimes it's just plain old luck.'

Maybe they were getting lucky. Maybe Joshua was getting lucky. 

There was no other way he could still be breathing. No other way Jeonghan had seen those messages and known who they were from. No other way the Mins could have been so lenient. 

It had to be luck. 

But Seungcheol’s father had another saying: 'Luck can go either way. You either find a million won on the sidewalk or get fucked by a polar bear in the desert.'

They could only hope Sungjong didn't own any polar bears. 

Seungcheol took a moment at the door to pull in a deep breath. His stomach was in knots, his thoughts were going crazy but he needed to remain calm for everybody inside that room. 

And, most importantly, for Joshua. 

Conscious of time and of leaving his second in that place for a moment longer, he shoved the doors open and strode inside, hoping that the tension in his neck and shoulders wasn't visible to the rest of the team. 

They had called in virtually everyone. All the underlings had been summoned to cover post while Seungcheol's main team went out into the field and, if that wasn't enough to convey the urgency of the situation, they'd also brought Hyunwoo's team in for backup. 

They had sat themselves in one corner, respectfully aware that although they loved Joshua, too, this wasn't their fight. They were merely the supporting roles. 

Seungcheol sent them a nod of gratitude to which Hyunwoo responded with one of his own and then there was no more stalling.

The rest of his guys were dotted around the main conference table with varying expressions of interest and confusion. None of them looked like they’d been sleeping or eating particularly well and Seungcheol couldn’t exactly blame them.

It was nearing sundown. The Mins would be making contact any moment now to say that they were going in and they all had to be ready before then or they would miss their chance.

"I’ll just cut to the chase,” Seungcheol began, sending a quick glance to Junhui as his friend started distributing in-ears and radios. “We’re raiding Sungjong’s base tonight, alongside the Mins.” 

Various shouts broke out across the room, exclamations of shock and bewilderment but also of satisfaction and eagerness. Every single person at that table wanted to tear Sungjong apart for what he’d done.

Seungcheol raised a hand and the room immediately fell silent again, leaving him just enough time and space to take a breath. 

“We have reason to believe that … that Shua could be alive.” 

This time, there was nothing. Not even a sharp inhale or a flinch. They were probably waiting for the other shoe to drop, for Seungcheol to start laughing and announce that it had all been some sick joke, but that wasn’t going to happen.

“We have no time for explanations or petty arguments right now,” the leader continued. “Get your comms on and make sure all your weapons are loaded. We need to rendezvous with the Mins in five and we can’t be late. This is our only opportunity.”

They deserved more. He owed them an explanation but he was still trying to wrap his head around the revelation himself and he’d had several more hours to process it than they had. 

But they had to be ready. There wasn’t time to discuss the hows and whys right now. There wasn’t time to brief them on just how severely Joshua would be hurt when they found him. If they found him. 

There wasn’t time. There were things to be done.

“I need a Team Alpha.”

Hands shot up in response. All of them. They had usual teams for missions like these but Seungcheol always asked anyway in case somebody was aware that they wouldn’t be working at their best.

But this was different. They’d never done anything this big. This dangerous. This reckless.

“Minghao, Jun, Soonyoung, I need you in for Hansol. Beta team: Wonwoo, Chan, Seungkwan, Mingyu. And you guys had better fucking watch that kid or else I will skin you all alive.”

There were murmurs of acknowledgement among the various clicking of guns being loaded and ammunition passed around. Seungcheol’s gaze lingered on Chan for a split second, watching that boy - that child - holstering a firearm in his belt.

“Hyunwoo, I need you to split your team. I want support on both sides but, whatever you do, stay out of the Mins way. They won’t hesitate to kill you if they mistake you for an enemy.”

Hyunwoo got to his feet with a mini salute before turning to face his guys and deliver his own set of orders. 

“This is really fucking dangerous, everybody!” Seungcheol called over the smattering of chatter. “And I know that we all want Sungjong’s head on a pike but our one and only priority is Joshua. Okay? We go in, we get him and we get straight out. Only kill if you have to. Is that understood?”

A chorus of “yes, sir!” rippled around the room and then everybody was moving, still a little shell-shocked, still a little rattled, but determined and fearless nonetheless. 

This was the biggest fight Seungcheol had ever commanded. If anybody died, if anybody got so much as a paper cut, he was never going to forgive himself. 

“Hey,” came Junhui’s voice on his left and he glanced up to accept the two handguns and the belt of ammo. “You good?”

Seungcheol glanced around the room, taking in every face, remembering every joke and hearing every individual laugh in the back of his head. These were his people. This was his family. He sucked in a breath. This was happening.

This was fucking happening.

They had to get him. 

He had to be there. 

He had to be okay.

“Hey,” Junhui repeated, a little softer this time. “He’s fine, we’re fine, everything is fine, Cheol. Calm down, yeah?” 

Seungcheol just nodded, not sure he trusted his voice to sound stable enough.

“Come on, people!” Junhui chanted, rallying the attention of everybody around them and smacking his hands together. “Time’s a wasting! Wrap it up! Up and at ‘em!”

Seungcheol’s lips cracked in a grossly unfamiliar smile. He truly didn’t know what he would have done without Junhui by his side these past few days. 

“Wait,” he whispered, hand shooting out to grab the kid’s elbow just as he was about to follow the others out of the room. “You stay safe, too, yeah? You come back. Just … Just … Come back, okay?”

He almost choked. 

“Couldn’t get rid of me the first fucking time so how the fuck you gonna get rid of me now?” Junhui laughed. “You’re getting soft on me, Coups.”

This was happening. 

They were doing this. 

“Now let’s go get our boy.” 


	23. A Reason To Live

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The chapter we've all been waiting for ...

Seungcheol had fought battles before. He’d carried out raids before. He’d obliterated enemies with just a flick of his trigger finger, wiped the blood from his face and marched straight into Seungkwan’s bar for a drink without giving his actions a second thought.

He was notorious for his aim, his strength, his agility and his nerves of steel, but something had changed.

Before, he’d been doing a job. He’d been making a living. He’d actually been having fun. Now, he had a reason to come back. To go home. To survive. He had a reason to avoid the bullets that were sent spiralling towards his head and it wasn’t just because it was _fun._

That doctor, the first person Seungcheol had ever kissed because he wanted to, was locked up in the med bay with a frightened pharmacist and a grieving kid with nothing but a couple of guns and a knife to protect himself.

Getting back to Jeonghan. That was a reason to live. 

His best friend, the person he trusted above all else, was in captivity. In pain. Suffering. Bleeding. Screaming and crying all because Seungcheol had given him the information that other people would want and then had let those people snatch him away.

Saving Joshua. That was a reason to live.

Jeonghan, Joshua, Chan, Hansol, Seokmin, Mingyu … All of them. Those were the faces that flashed through his mind as he scrambled across the polished marble floors, hands slipping and sliding in the blood that lathered the surfaces, reaching for his gun.

He’d never had a family. Not a proper one anyway. And he hadn’t even realised that the people he’d had around him were more than that until his fingers closed around the smooth metal hilt.

The safety clicked obediently and he flipped onto his back, raising the weapon and pulling the trigger just before the thick metal rebar could come down on his head.

The bullet ripped through his assailant’s chest and his eyes blew comically wide, his bludgeon slipping from his hand and his dress shirt blossoming blood as his knees hit the ground and he keeled over sideways.

Seungcheol stumbled to his feet, ignoring the dull throb in his ribs and the sharp twinge in his shoulder as he blinked blood from his eyes and glanced around.

It was absolute chaos.

Statues had shattered, broken body parts strewn over the floor among the corpses of those who hadn’t been fast enough or quick enough or strong enough to defend themselves against whichever side they’d been fighting.

Paintings were splattered with blood, antique designs ruined forever by scarlet smudges and crimson curves. The walls were peppered with bullet holes, plaster and dust crumbling, entire structures wavering, great chunks of the sleek wooden staircase crashing to the ground around them.

This was what happened when a Min was murdered in cold blood just so that an arrogant pathetic little nobody could add a few more acres to his name. This was the price Sungjong was paying for the game he thought he’d won.

Seungcheol had completely lost track of where anybody was, his eyes constantly sweeping the area for any sign of a comrade in trouble, but there was none. With any luck, they were keeping to the shadows, staying out of the firing line and protecting themselves.

A bone-splintering crash shook the foundations and Seungcheol dived onto the ground, arms shielding his head just as the wall to his left was blown to pieces.

Shrapnel scraped at the back of his neck and hands, concrete slabs missed him by mere inches, roars of pain cut through the air as people – friend or foe, he didn’t know – were crushed or maimed or killed.

Dust was everywhere, crawling up his nose and down his throat and causing him to cough and splutter as he dragged himself off the ground.

His ears were ringing, his head was spinning, he could no longer hear Jihoon screaming down the comms and it was only when he looked up that he realised why. The device had fallen out and was lying just a few feet away, in danger of being crushed at any moment.

Keeping low to the ground to avoid the shots firing over his head, Seungcheol lunged forwards with a grunt of pain, his ribs groaning from the stress of taking so many hits, and then a boot came down on his hand.

Thick rubber soles smashed his fingers into the ground, breaking his in-ear into dismembered pieces and causing a hiss of agony to slip free from his mouth as he heard the sound of his bones giving beneath the weight.

He didn’t have to raise his head to know there was a gun aimed at him from above and he wasted no time in using his pinned appendage as a centre point, seizing his attacker’s boot with his free hand and twisting his entire body so that his legs swivelled round and swept his enemy’s feet right out from under him.

The guy was knocked flying, his gun going off in his surprise, the bullet lodging itself in the floor just a few inches away from its intended target’s body.

Seungcheol braced his uninjured hand against the floor, cradling the other against his chest, and pushed upwards. He made it to his knees, glanced up and felt his blood run completely cold.

One of Sungjong’s men was standing right in front of him, a triumphant smirk of satisfaction plaguing his hideous face as he slowly, mockingly, raised his gun and pressed the barrel into the centre of Seungcheol’s forehead.

_‘I’ll come back’_

_‘I know’_

_BANG!_

For a moment, Seungcheol thought that was it. That he was dead. He’d been taken down by a fucking underling of all things, on his knees, in the middle of a warzone with absolutely no idea where his team was or how he was going to find the person they had come to retrieve.

But then that moment passed and there was no pain aside from what he’d already felt. There was no bullet in his body or hole in his head and he opened his eyes to see the man who had very nearly taken his life crumpled in a bloodied heap in front of him.

He looked around, desperately searching for his saviour, expecting to see one of his guys smirking at him with a smug sense of pride. Instead, he got Min Suga.

The killer’s gun was still smoking and there was a trickle of blood sourcing from a wound just above his left eyebrow but the only expression on his face was that of irritability. As though the person he’d just killed had been nothing but an inconvenience.

Seungcheol scrambled to his feet, still too shocked to utter a word, but Suga did it for him.

“You owe me,” he growled, and then he was gone, plunging back into the thicket of the fight without the slightest regard for his own personal safety.

So much was happening and everything was a blur and yet, somehow, at the same time, it was all moving in slow motion. People were dying, getting shot, stabbed, blown to pieces, and all Seungcheol could think about was that single moment.

He’d thought he was going to die. It was a situation he’d found himself in a million times before but never once had he actually experienced a feeling so profound and seen an image so vivid in what could well have been his final moments.

Jeonghan’s voice. Jeonghan’s smile. Jeonghan was in his head and Jeonghan was all Seungcheol could think about as he retrieved his gun from the ground and dived beneath the staircase in attempt to find cover.

He tried to rid himself of the thought but it was persistent, niggling at the back of his mind and driving him to the point of insanity. Jeonghan was in his head and all he wanted to do was have him in his arms.

Was this what they called weakness? Was this why his father had told him never – _never_ – to fall in love? To have sex and breed future mob bosses, sure, but to fall in love … He couldn’t think about that right now.

He had a job to do. He had somebody to save.

And then Seungkwan was skidding towards him, a pretty spectacular black eye already blossoming in a wide variety of purples and blues and a bloody split in the centre of his bottom lip.

“Coups!” he screamed over the gunfire and the explosions accosting their sensory nerves. “What are you doing? Didn’t you hear Woozi?”

“No!” Seungcheol yelled back, gesturing towards his ear as he took the spare moment to reload his gun. “My wire broke!”

The clip clicked into place and he immediately leapt to his feet, hauling Seungkwan up with him by the collar of his jacket and heaving him out of the path of a speeding bullet that would have struck him right between the eyes.

Without a word, they started running, constantly throwing glances over their shoulders and occasionally firing a shot to eliminate a threat before they slid into a side room and slammed the door, leaning heavily against the polished wood and gasping for breath.

“Have you seen any of the others?” Seungcheol panted, wiping the sweat from his brow. “I lost all of them. I don’t even know if they’re alive.”

“Wonwoo, Hoshi, Dino, The8,” Seungkwan listed with the side of his face pressed into the door and his eyes closed in exhaustion. “They were all still kicking when I saw them last.”

Seungcheol just nodded, knowing that he had to take what he could get in this situation and refusing to think about the possibility that he’d just led his entire team to their very painful and very violent deaths.

Desperate for any kind of distraction, he glanced around at the room they’d thrown themselves into, noting the distinct difference between the décor in here and out there.

There was no elaborate wallpaper, no works of art, no statues, no expensive furniture, no velvet cushions or antique rugs. Instead, there was just stone. Stone and concrete and a couple of wooden supporting beams keeping the ceiling up.

It looked more like a dungeon than anything else. Because, of course, Sungjong’s melodramatic ass had to have a dungeon.

“Coups …”

The whisper was so faint that Seungcheol barely heard it over the sound of his own breathing but there was absolutely no way he could miss the way Seungkwan suddenly leapt away from the door with his gun raised and his lip curled in fury.

Seungcheol spun around, his finger already resting on the trigger of his weapon and his senses on the highest alert, but what he saw right in front of him was almost enough to bring him to his knees.

He couldn’t believe they’d missed it.

“Drop it!” Seungkwan roared, a few flecks of spittle flying from the tip of his tongue. “Drop it right fucking now or I’ll put a bullet through your throat and let you choke on your own fucking blood!”

Seungcheol only just managed to raise his arms and copy Seungkwan’s stance of defence, his mind clouded completely by a white-hot anger comparable to nothing he’d ever felt before.

The man standing in front of them could barely even be called a man. He didn’t look a day over twenty, maybe even younger than Chan, and he looked absolutely beyond himself with terror.

Even across the ten-foot distance between them, Seungcheol could see the way sweat was beading on his forehead and his breaths were coming in short sharp gasps as he stared down the barrels of two guns wielded by these complete strangers.

If it wasn’t for what he was doing, Seungcheol wouldn’t have wanted to shoot him at all. He would have marched right up to him, swatted the knife out of his hand and told him to run straight home to his mama before he could be late for dinner.

“I said drop it!” Seungkwan screamed and the boy flinched, the blade in his hand spasming along with the rest of his body and coming too close. Just … too close.

“No …” he stuttered back, trying to sound as intimidating and authoritative as possible but failing miserably. “You drop yours … Both of you, put the guns down … Or I’ll do it … I swear to God, I’ll do it!”

He was standing behind a chair and in that chair was what was left of Seungcheol’s best friend.

Joshua wasn’t conscious and that was probably a good thing since his face was a blackened, bloodied mess of pulverised flesh, one eye so puffy and swollen that it had almost doubled in size. 

They’d taken his shirt completely and his chest was barely moving, wheezing breaths fighting their way through what sounded like broken ribs and maybe even a collapsed lung, held together by a purplish tissue paper tarp of bruised skin.

His ankles and wrists were still pinned to the arms and the legs of the chair with barbed wire, all four appendages completely shredded from days and days’ worth of struggling, and the collar of spikes and spines was still tightened around his throat.

A bandage had been wrapped clumsily around his thigh but it didn’t look like it had been changed in well over twenty-four hours, the gauze stained with bodily fluids of various colours that indicated both inflammation and infection.

There was blood everywhere. Some of it fresh, some of it dried, some of it starting to flake and crust but all of it Joshua’s.

Sungjong’s guard had a hand over his captive’s mouth, keeping his head pulled back and causing new scarlet rivulets to trickle over his collarbones as the barbed wire bit into the skin of his neck. His other hand was the one that held the knife, its steel tip pointed directly at Joshua’s heart.

“Last chance,” Seungcheol snarled, his voice dangerously low as his finger itched against the trigger. “Put the knife down and step away.”

This guy was an idiot. His entire upper body was exposed and his hands were shaking far too much for his threats to actually induce any fear but, no matter how young and inexperienced he appeared, he was threatening to plunge a knife into his prisoner’s chest.

And that meant he had to die.

“I’m calling the shots here!” the kid shouted, giving Joshua’s head an unnecessarily brutal shake. “You have three seconds to put your weapons on the floor, kick them towards me and then get on your knees.”

Seungcheol heard Seungkwan’s scoff of mirthless disgust beside him but his eyes were resolutely focused on the tip of that knife.

It was pressing into Joshua’s skin, tiny pearls of blood beading around the peak of the blade but Seungcheol highly doubted that this boy was capable of actually driving it through his captive’s ribcage and piercing his heart.

Chances were that he’d been planted here to guard the prisoner while the real soldiers were out fighting for their leader’s life.

“Three!”

Seungcheol closed one eye.

“Two!”

He squeezed the trigger, arms expertly absorbing the shock of the kickback, eardrums immune to the deafening _BANG_ that echoed off the stone walls and reverberated around the room.

“One,” he puffed under his breath, lowering his weapon and stuffing it into his belt.

Seungkwan kept his gun trained on the motionless body that lay sprawled on the ground behind the chair as Seungcheol crouched at his side and felt for a pulse.

He wasn’t confident that he would get one since the boy’s eyes were glassy, a gaping chasm had ripped through his forehead and a puddle of thick scarlet syrup was steadily spreading over the concrete. 

“Dead,” he grunted, just loud enough to signal to Seungkwan that it was okay to holster his firearm before the both of them dropped to their knees on either side of the chair.

“Shua? Shua! Joshua!”

He looked even worse up close.

A pair of perfectly circular welts were scorched into the skin just above his left hip, looking suspiciously similar to the marks of a stun gun or taser. A series of cigarette burns were grouped beneath his collarbone, there was a fucking bite mark on his shoulder and his hands …

“Joshua!” Seungcheol cried out, gently cupping his best friend’s chin and lifting it from where it had fallen forwards to rest against his chest. “Joshua, open your eyes!”

There was no response and, if it weren’t for the stuttering wheezes, Seungcheol may have mistaken the figure in front of him for a corpse.

“Coups,” Seungkwan choked from where he was examining the wounds in Joshua’s hand. “Coups, I’m scared to move him. The barbs might be close to severing an artery. If we cut them, he’ll bleed out before we even get him out of the room.”

He was right. The wire around Joshua’s neck was dangerously close to his carotid. A single shift in the wrong direction and he would be dead in minutes. Not to mention the threat to the blood vessels in his wrists. 

And his hands …

“We have to get him out,” Seungcheol said firmly, cupping his second’s face in his hands to try and keep his head elevated. “We’re not leaving him to die in this shithole.”

No sooner had the expletive left his mouth did a very weak, very constricted groan grate its way up a mutilated throat and out through a pair of chapped lips that were dripping in blood-tinted spittle.

“Shua?”

Joshua’s breathing was starting to pick up, his one good eye fluttering, his chest heaving as alertness slowly returned to his battered and bleeding mind.

A rattling gasp of panic spluttered from his mouth and he lurched in his seat, several wordless whimpers springing free as he tried to escape the danger he thought was still right in front of him.

And his hands …

“Joshua!” Seungcheol cried at once, tightening his hold on Joshua’s head in an attempt to stop him doing further harm to himself but only succeeding in increasing the terror. “Joshua, it’s me! Shua, please! Look at me!”

Seungkwan was gripping his arms to prevent the barbed restraints from continuing to fillet the skin of his wrists but it was devastatingly obvious that, by now, Joshua had been conditioned to associate physical contact with more torture.

“Get him out,” Seungcheol gasped, feeling unwanted prickling at the backs of his eyes. “Get him out now!”

Seungkwan moved at the speed of light, pulling the pliers from his belt and reaching for the loop of barbed wire. And as soon as Joshua’s only working eye focused on that tool, his dial of panic hit its limit.

“Ngh!” he wailed, struggles increasing in ferocity and breaths bordering on hyperventilation, choking up thick globules of blood in between slurring pleas. “Ngh … pl … ngh mo … ngh mghre!”

Seungkwan froze in horror and Seungcheol could understand why. Joshua thought they were about to torture him. Joshua didn’t recognise them. Joshua believed they were about to hurt him.

“Seungkwan …”

“Yeah …” the boy mumbled, furiously blinking back tears as he wedged the wire tether between the claws of the plier and pinched. “Sorry, Shua …”

There was a metallic clink, a sob of pain and then Seungkwan was prying the restraints from his friend’s body, leaving splintered gouges in the arms of the chair and oozing chasms in the flesh of his wrists, a couple of them burrowing down to the bone.

And his hands …

“Ple … se …” Joshua sobbed. “Ple … se … please … st … p … sto … please …”

Seungcheol wanted blood. He wanted to murder. He wanted to track down every last member of Sungjong’s gang, tie them down, pull their intestines out through their mouths and then force them to swallow them again.

“We will stop,” he whispered, stoking his thumb back and forth over the peak of Joshua’s bruised cheekbone. “I promise, Shua. We will stop. Just a little longer, okay? Just hang on a little longer for me.”

Seungkwan circled around to the opposite side of the chair and started working on the other wrist and Seungcheol saw the first tear splash to the ground but he resolutely ignored its existence. He couldn’t blame Seungkwan for crying right now.

The door burst open behind them just as the second wrist tie succumbed to the pliers and Seungcheol whipped around, already reaching for his gun before he recognised the new arrivals.

Junhui had his back to them, still facing the entrance with his weapon at the ready, protecting them as they worked, while Mingyu skidded to his knees beside the chair and instantly began cutting through the wires on Joshua’s ankles.

“It’s a slaughter out there!” Junhui called over his shoulder. “You can barely take a step without slipping on brain matter.”

Seungcheol didn’t respond. The thought of any of that brain matter belonging to one of his own was just too terrible to dwell on and he already had his hands full with the pain and suffering occurring right in front of him.

And the hands …

“Mingyu,” he whispered, drawing the attention of his tallest fighter. “I’ve never seen torture like this. I’m not sure he can even hear anything I’m saying.”

Before he could get a response, Seungkwan sliced through the last of the barbed wire and Joshua chose that moment to lurch forwards and spew a torrent of blood down Seungcheol’s front.

“We need to go now,” Mingyu hissed, springing to his feet and slipping his arms around his friend’s spasming body. “Before he bleeds to death.”

They hadn’t touched the wire around his neck and Seungcheol knew they weren’t going to until they were somewhere safe, clean and in the company of Jeonghan and his variety of medical expertise. 

And his hands …

Joshua seemed to be hovering in some kind of limbo between conscious and not as Mingyu hefted him out of his chair without so much as a grunt of effort. He’d clearly been starved if the ghostly pallor of his unblemished skin and worryingly skeletal frame was anything to go by.

“What’s the quickest way out?” Seungkwan asked, transferring the blood from his hands onto the material of his pants. “We’re not exactly going to be able to move that fast.”

“Speak for yourself,” Mingyu grunted as he shifted Joshua slightly higher in his grip and stormed towards the door like he wasn’t carrying a full-grown man. “There’s a back exit at the end of the corridor. And you guys had better cover me. I can’t exactly hold a gun right now.”

Seungcheol had sweat literally dripping from the tip of his nose, entire body aching from the various injuries he’d sustained which, now that he’d seen Joshua, felt like nothing more than a couple of scrapes and bruises.

He’d had no idea that things would be this bad. That there would be so much death and destruction in every inch of this collapsing building.

“Seungkwan, get on the comms! Tell everybody we have Shua and that they need to get out right now!”

Joshua was circling the drain. He could see it in the way his friend’s arms swung with every movement Mingyu made and in the way his head was hanging over the crook of his saviour’s elbow as though he just didn’t possess the strength to keep it up.

“Make sure you cover Mingyu!”

That was the final order Seungcheol gave before Joshua’s throat emitted several choking, gurgling sounds and he realised they were playing with borrowed time. 

If it were up to him, he would never again let his second out of his sight. He would stay by his side for the rest of eternity if that’s what it would take to convince himself that no further harm would ever come to him. 

But he had other men. Other kids who were out there right now, fighting tooth and nail because he’d told them to. That was all the motivation they’d needed. Seungcheol told them to fight and so they had come to fight.

And if he told them to die, they would probably line up at the chopping block, so there was absolutely no way he was leaving them here.

“Go,” he told Junhui. “You, Mingyu, Seungkwan, take Shua to the van and go. Don’t wait. Just go. Get him to Han and DK and get him treated.”

He could already see the protests forming on Junhui’s lips and that was why he added a final, resounding, “that’s an order, Jun!”

Face screwed up in some kind of inner conflict, the order’s recipient let out a scream of frustration before wrenching open the door and throwing himself into the midst of all the chaos, a couple of well-aimed shots knocking out the enemies nearest to them.

Mingyu followed, angling his body so that his torso was shielding as much of Joshua’s limp figure as possible and then Seungkwan brought up the rear, beady eyes sweeping the area in case he needed to protect Mingyu’s back. 

Seungcheol ducked behind some kind of overturned apothecary table and watched as the four of them made a bid for freedom, sending a silent prayer up to a God he’d never believed in that they all made it safely.

And then he snapped.

These people had tried to take everything from him. They’d tried to murder him, tarnished his name, thrown him at the Mins’ feet, threatened Jeonghan - _his_ Jeonghan - and they’d taken and tortured his dearest and most loyal friend.

Even from where he was crouched, Seungcheol could still see those hands. 

The wonky way the fingers were positioned, bones pushing up against the underside of bloodied skin, some of them poking out into the open. At least three of his nails had been removed, ripped from their beds to leave crimson slabs of exposed flesh.

And then there were the pins. Thick, sharp metal spears that had been driven into the tips of his fingers, burrowing beneath the nails themselves and maybe even drilling through bone.

Seungcheol had never seen a method so cruel. It would have been absolute agony. Joshua would have bucked and screamed and fought against his spikey restraints and it would have resulted in more pain, more anguish, more desperation.

He hadn’t been granted a single second to breathe. His every waking moment was torture even if there wasn’t anybody in the room with him. He had been suffering without relent since the moment he’d been taken and these people were responsible for that.

So Seungcheol snapped.

In his incontestable fury, he forgot about his promise to Suga. He forgot that his only goal was to retrieve Joshua and then get the fuck out. He forgot that his mission had already been achieved. He wanted to kill.

Sparing a single second to ensure he had enough rounds in his clip, he left the safety of his apothecary cover and instantly took down two men with a single shot.

And he probably would have gone further, taken more, murdered and maimed until he dropped from exhaustion if he hadn’t caught sight of Chan kneeling on the floor in the very centre of all the carnage.

His back was to Seungcheol and he was hunched over something that looked alarmingly similar to a body, arms forming a protective cage around its head as he shielded it from the bullets and blades that were flying all around him.

Dread pooling in the pit of his stomach, mind scrambling to figure out who was lying there without moving, Seungcheol started forwards with every intention of slaughtering anybody who came within touching distance of Chan and whoever he was protecting.

But somebody else got there first. 

Sungjong’s prized suit was ripped at the elbows, stained with blood and caked in a thick layer of dust. He appeared from nowhere, materialising in the middle of the fray, sneaking up on Chan from behind and wrapping his arms around the kid’s body.

“No …” Seungcheol breathed, skidding to a horrified halt with his heart in his throat.

Chan’s feet were off the floor, kicking in mid air as he tried to wriggle free but the moment the barrel of Sungjong’s gun was pressed up against his temple, he stopped his fruitless struggle.

Seungcheol was still behind the both of them. They hadn’t seen him yet and therefore he had every advantage but he couldn’t risk making a single move. Not with Chan being used as a human shield by the very person he hated above all others.

“Get the fuck back!” Sungjong bellowed, addressing the army that faced him. “Get the fuck back or this kid’s death is on you!”

Everything had suddenly gone eerily silent.

Every weapon had frozen, every breathing body had stilled, every eye in the huge marble lobby was fixed on the two people standing in the middle of the room, waiting for whatever was going to happen next.

Sungjong looked like he was the only one left. The series of guns that were pointed at his head were all held by Mins and Suga was in the very centre, his lip curled with infuriated disgust.

“That’s a child, Sungjong!” he growled, his eyes flickering over to where Seungcheol stood hidden in the corner. “We have a code! We don’t kill kids! Or have you really stooped that low?”

His gaze was saying something. Seungcheol feel the secret message being passed across the space between them but he didn’t know what it was. Suga could be telling him to stay back, to let him handle this, or he could be telling him to attack from behind.

Either way, Seungcheol’s kid’s life was being threatened and he wasn’t sure he was going to be able to stay still for much longer.

“Desperate times call for desperate measures!” Sungjong countered, taking a step back and dragging Chan with him. “You people broke into my house! I’m merely defending myself!”

Seungcheol’s hands were starting to shake as he kept his gun trained on the back of his nemesis’ skull, not with fear but with fury. This monster was not going to harm another person that he cared about.

And then:

“Kill him! Fucking kill him! Just do it!”

The words were Chan’s but Seungcheol couldn’t accept that. Couldn’t believe that the scrappy little kid he’d found bound and beaten in the basement of some crackhouse all those years ago could be capable of such stupid courage. 

“Shut up,” Sungjong snarled, shoving his gun further into the side of his captive’s head. 

Seungcheol caught Suga’s eye, one leader to another, and the infinitesimal nod was all he needed to know that he had the green light to take aim and fire. 

His accuracy was on point, the steel-cased bullet tearing into the meat of Sungjong’s right shoulder and producing a spine-chilling roar of shock and agony from the mouth of the person who had let him believe he’d burned Joshua alive. 

They went down together, Sungjong’s weight collapsing on top of Chan and, instantly, everybody was moving. 

Seungcheol was quickest, the studded toe of his boot digging into his enemy’s ribs as he kicked his body sideways. The bastard’s shirt was already stained with scarlet, his eyes were blown wide and his teeth were gritted in agony. Good.

“Nice shot,” Suga grunted but Seungcheol wasn’t listening. 

“What the fuck were you doing?” he screamed, seizing Chan by the shoulders and wrenching him up from the floor to give him the most brutal shake he could muster in his traumatised state. “WHAT THE FUCK WERE YOU DOING?”

There were tears on Chan’s face, streaking through the grime and blood smudged over his cheeks, and his bottom lip trembled as he whispered the words, “I’m sorry.”

Seungcheol clamped the kid to his chest, one hand securing an iron-tight vice around his back and the other threading broken fingers through his matted hair, eyes closed, breaths forcibly controlled. 

He’d almost lost him. 

It had been so close. 

He’d almost lost his baby.

Chan’s fists were curled in the back of his shirt and it was with nothing but apoplectic anger that Seungcheol looked up and addressed Suga.

The Mins had Sungjong on his knees, bloodied fingers clutching at his injured shoulder, their leader standing right in front of him with his knife at the ready. 

“Sir?” Seungcheol called, still with his arms fastened around Chan’s trembling body. 

“What?”

“Make it hurt.”

He glared Sungjong right in the eye as he said it and his words elicited a sadistic smirk of satisfaction from Suga’s lips as he crouched down in front of his captive and cocked his head to the side. 

“Oh, don’t worry, Coups. I will.”

Seungcheol would have been lying if he’d said he didn’t want to stay and watch as Sungjong was ripped apart just as Joshua had been ripped apart. Just as Chan had almost been ripped apart. But his job was done. His people were safe. 

“Come on,” he murmured, taking his youngest’s hands and pulling him to his feet so the two of them could turn towards their fallen member who was still sprawled, unconscious, on the ground. 

It was Soonyoung.

His breaths were shallow, his eyes were closed and there was a hell of a lot of blood clinging to the side of his face. It looked like a bullet had just grazed his ear, the cartilage torn and tattered and leaving it impossible to tell if the actual ear itself had survived the trauma.

“Help me get him up,” he ordered Chan and, between the two of them, they managed to get Soonyoung’s arms around their shoulders.

He was deadened weight, feet dragging along the ground as they staggered with him suspended in the middle of them, but nobody dared confront them on their journey to safety. There was nobody left _to_ confront them.

And, just as they made the transition from the musty, body-strewn building into heavenly, breathtaking, boundless freedom, Sungjong’s screams cut through the air, playing the perfect victory song to conclude their triumph.


	24. Boyfriends And Blood

“A Walk To Remember”, “Bridget Jones’ Diary”, “Clueless”, “Dirty Dancing”, E … E … 

“Avengers”, “Badlands”, “Captain America”, “Dawn of the Planet of the Apes”, E … E … Fuck.

When Jeonghan had started this game, he’d thought his movie trivia skills were up to scratch but, clearly, he’d been wrong. He’d hoped that the distraction would do him good as he sat here, locked in this room, while Seungcheol fought a war and Joshua fought for his life.

“Abraham Lincoln vs Zombies”, “Brain Dead”, “Children of the Corn”, “Dawn of the Dead”, E …

Fuck, why couldn’t he think of anything for E.

“I know what it’s like.”

Jeonghan’s head snapped up from where it had been resting on his arms, his neck popping with the impromptu movement after spending so long slouched in his chair, trying not to think about what could be happening to Seungcheol and the rest of the team at that moment.

Seokmin had fallen asleep on one of the beds, curled up around a pillow with his face buried in the material so he could hide from the world and its cruelties, but Hansol hadn’t even sat down since they’d been left alone here.

It was understandable, seeing as he’d spent three straight days cuffed to a mattress, that he wouldn’t want to stay still but the incessant pacing and the scuffing of his boots on the concrete had started to drive Jeonghan to the point of insanity.

They hadn’t spoken to each other in hours but it seemed that the silent streak had come to an end.

“What did you say?”

“I said, I know what it’s like,” Hansol repeated bitterly from where he was leaning against the wall, twirling his gun around his index finger. “To burn. To be on fire. To feel your skin melting away and not be able to do anything about it.”

Jeonghan’s entire mind just went blank.

He hadn’t forgotten about Hansol’s injuries by any means. The smell of that kid’s bubbling flesh would forever be singed into the back of his mind. 

But he hadn’t made the connection. He hadn’t joined the dots. He hadn’t realised that Hansol had almost suffered the exact same fate as Joshua and, suddenly, his actions were far easier to understand.

“I’m sorry,” Jeonghan whispered, wishing he knew what else to say. “I’m sorry you had to go through that and … and I’m sorry that you had to hear that phone call.”

It would have been the most excruciating reminder of his own pain. Listening to Joshua scream and struggle would have brought back the memories of Hansol’s own torture from when he’d been trapped in that flaming car.

“I don’t blame you,” the boy finally admitted, so quietly that Jeonghan almost missed it.

He blanched, blinked and then blurted, “You don’t?”

He’d been under the impression that Hansol hated his guts. That Hansol wanted him dead. That the only reason Hansol hadn’t put a bullet through his head was the promise he’d made to Seungcheol. But, apparently, he’d been wrong.

“I want to,” Hansol murmured, pushing off the wall and resuming his methodical pacing. “I really want to, but I can’t.”

“Why not?”

“Because I would have made the same choice,” the boy ground out, scrubbing his hand over his face and raking his fingers through his unwashed hair. “We have a policy. We don’t trade lives. I wouldn’t have liked it but I’d have made the same call… And … And if we lost you then we’d have lost Seungcheol, too. And none of us could survive that.”

He took a shuddering breath, still resolutely refusing to look in Jeonghan’s direction.

“Shua had to die so the rest of us could live. We needed you and your testimony and Shua paid for it. Besides, I'm the one who left that video in your room and almost got you killed so I guess we're even."

But Joshua hadn’t died. At least, as far as Jeonghan knew, he hadn’t. Sungjong had wanted them to think otherwise but that was the only reason the three of them were currently locked in the med bay, awaiting a return that might never come.

Seungcheol had warned him not to tell Hansol about the possible survival of his best friend, that the kid wouldn’t be able to sit still, would probably go ballistic and start shooting everything that moved, but Jeonghan couldn’t watch this.

Hansol was grieving. Hansol was hurt and scared and confined to that deep dark pit of despair that Jeonghan was still trying to climb his way out of after Hyuk’s murder. He had the power to end that suffering and yet he was withholding it.

“Hansol …” he started, slowly rising from his chair in preparation to calm whatever storm was about to hit. “There’s something you should know.”

“OPEN UP!”

The scream cut through the silence from the other side of the door, swiftly followed by the frantic hammering of a fist against its barrier that had Seokmin shooting up from the bed with his eyes comically wide and fearful.

“Get behind me,” Hansol ordered, seizing Jeonghan’s arm and shoving him backwards as he pointed his gun at the locked door and removed the safety.

“HANSOL, IT’S JUN! OPEN THE FUCKING DOOR!”

“Oh, shit …”

Hansol holstered his gun in a heartbeat and lunged forwards, fingers grappling with the bolt until he finally got a grip strong enough to slide it back and wrench the door open, releasing the tidal wave that threatened to drown every single one of them.

Jeonghan had known it would be bad, but nothing could have prepared him for this.

Junhui was the first one over the threshold, his nose slightly off-centre and a huge slit in the middle of his eyebrow dribbling scarlet into his vision. Seungkwan was next with his blackened eye and bloodied lip, and then Mingyu.

All three of them looked like they’d been to hell and back but the person they had with them … he looked like he was still there.

Jeonghan couldn’t help but stare. He couldn’t help but stand frozen in place, gaping at the battered body that lay limp in Mingyu’s arms. 

His brain was too slow to catch up to the activity in front of him. The signs were all there but he couldn’t bring himself to understand them and, distantly, he knew that he needed to do something but his feet stayed rooted in place as his stomach bubbled with the need to spill his last meal, which may or may not have been more than a few days ago.

“Jeonghan, we need you now!” Mingyu snapped as he stumbled over to the table and ever so gently laid his burden over the sterilised surface.

Jeonghan took one look at Joshua’s mutilated face, mangled hands, badly bandaged leg and flailing chest and wondered how the holy fuck the boy was still breathing.

“Jeonghan! Now!” Junhui barked as Jeonghan’s feet still refused to move.

Jeonghan swallowed harshly and took a deep calming breath before he allowed his doctor instincts to take control and rid him of any unnecessary thought. 

Now wasn’t the time to fall apart. Even if Joshua had been beaten to a bloodied pulp. He had to concentrate.

“Seokmin!” he shouted, already pulling on a pair of gloves. “Get over here, get some gloves and help me! Seungkwan, grab all the pain meds we have! Junhui, get me a suture kit from the drawer over there! Does anyone know what blood type he is?”

He wrestled the oxygen mask over Joshua’s face, praying that the crackling he could hear wasn’t a collapsed lung and that the infection in his leg hadn’t spread far enough to warrant amputation. 

He glanced up, waiting for somebody to answer his question, and caught sight of Hansol.

The kid was the very definition of shock itself. His eyes were watering, his hands were shaking, his mouth was hanging open and Jeonghan could almost hear the cogs turning in his brain as he tried to come to terms with what should have been the impossible.

It would have been kinder to prepare him.

“Type A!” Junhui supplied, depositing the suture kit at the foot of the table. “He’s Type A.”

“I’m going to need someone to do a transfusion!”

“I will.”

Jeonghan turned his head towards the door where Jihoon was already rolling up his sleeve and holding out his arm for Mingyu to apply the tourniquet, and everything was moving at breakneck speed and there wasn’t a single spare second to breathe.

“I need to get this collar off,” he announced, running his fingers over the barbed wire around his patient’s neck. “I’m gonna need hands. Lots of them. If I nick an artery then I’ll need all the help I can fucking get. Get gloves on, we can’t risk another infection.”

It was a terrifying prospect. It was a dangerously risky procedure. One wrong move and he would kill the person they’d only just brought back from the dead.

“Seokmin, you remember what I taught you about putting a line in?”

“Yeah.”

“Jihoon, sit down on the edge of the table. We’re literally gonna drain you and, no offence, but if you faint, I’m gonna have to leave you on the floor.”

Jeonghan looked over at Seokmin, “Keep Jihoon higher than Shua. We need gravity working on this if we’re going to do a vein to vein transfusion.” 

Seokmin nodded and began deftly drilling a needle into the crook of Jihoon’s elbow.

A pair of pliers were pushed into Jeonghan’s hand and he didn’t give himself a spare second to think about the potentially lethal consequences as he brought the instrument to the barbed wire brace and clipped straight through, denying the offending object any opportunity of sitting there a moment longer. 

One of Joshua’s eyes – the one that wasn’t in danger of losing its sight – flew open just as Jeonghan started to pry the collar away from his skin and, for a second, their gazes locked.

In that second Jeonghan could see Joshua’s expression turn from awareness to confusion and then to fear just moments before he started fighting.

Despite the state his hands were in, both of them leapt to the fingers around his throat and began clawing at everything he could reach. His mouth overflowed with blood. As he coughed, some of it splattered over his face and the way he was breathing was definitely an indication of a punctured lung.

“Hold him down!” Jeonghan ordered at once, terrified that his patient’s struggles were going to cause the barbed wire to slice straight through his carotid.

Immediately on his command, hands fastened around Joshua’s wrists and ankles, clamping down on the ligature wounds that already resided there, and pinned them to the table. It was an order Jeonghan never would have given considering the circumstances but he needed everything to be still. 

He wished he had asked Minghao what was on his blow dart all those days ago because sedation was necessary right now.

“Plea …se …” Joshua gasped, still battling tooth and nail despite how much pain it must have been bringing him. “Plea … se … st …”

“Stop it!” Hansol suddenly screamed, lunging forwards and trying to pry Junhui’s hands from Joshua’s body. “Stop it! You’re hurting him! Stop it!”

“Hansol!” Jeonghan roared back. “He doesn’t know who we are! Now help us or I’ll have Mingyu knock you out!”

He hated himself for what he was doing to this boy. He hated himself to the very core but if this was what it was going to take to save Joshua’s life then he was more than willing to bear a few more of Hansol’s teary, withering glares.

His fingers curled around the barbed collar and, just as he was about to pull it free in one quick movement, Joshua’s head snapped to the side.

“NO! No, no, no, no, no, no! FUCK!” Jeonghan screamed, hurling the wire to the floor as he planted both hands over the steadily seeping wound in the side of his patient’s neck. “Seokmin, I need that transfusion now! Somebody get me all the gauze we have!”

Blood was lapping over his fingers, bubbling up over his nails and dribbling off the edge of the table to create a growing puddle on the floor underneath. It wasn’t pulsing. It wasn’t arterial. But it was bad. Very, very, very bad.

“I need hands!”

And they appeared, Seungkwan’s and Mingyu’s, clamping down on top of his just as Joshua’s eye rolled back into his head. 

“He’s going into shock,” Jeonghan hissed, the heavy panic in the room only intensifying at his words. 

Seokmin’s hands were trembling as they tried to find a vein in Joshua’s arm that he could stick a needle through but the incessant struggling was proving difficult.

“Seokmin, get the gauze and antiseptic spray. Seungkwan, Mingyu, keep your hands there,” Jeonghan ordered, ensuring enough pressure was being applied to the wound before he dared stepping away.

He slid down to the other end of the table and took over from Seokmin, attempting the exceedingly fiddly task of securing a line in Joshua’s severely dehydrated and therefore virtually non-existent veins.

“Jihoon, flex for me,” he demanded when he finally managed to pierce the skin. 

Instantly, the thin plastic tube running from one body to another turned a deep shade of red and Jeonghan had to resist the urge to step away from the table and do a couple of those breathing exercises Junhui had taught him.

“Keep that up,” he told Jihoon instead, eyeing the small boy sitting on the other side of the table. “Tell me if you feel faint.” 

Seokmin returned to his side, depositing the gauze and antiseptic spray within reach, and Jeonghan sent up a quick prayer to whatever deity would listen before he told Seungkwan and Mingyu to remove their hands.

The faucet had now turned sluggish as he dabbed at the excess fluid around the gash and dusted the jagged edges with antiseptic spray. 

The chemicals would stop the bleeding as well as clean the wound but, when he no longer needed their help, he would have to send somebody to get medication for tetanus.

Even if they had to break into a fucking lab to get it, he didn’t care.

The flow had slowed enough to no longer pose a serious threat so Jeonghan plastered a wad of gauze against the side of Joshua’s neck, secured it with a bandage and hoped for the absolute best.

The leg was next, yellow and greenish discharge seeping into the underside of the sloppily-applied dressing. It was pretty much fused to his skin, forcing Jeonghan to cut it off.

There was finger-shaped bruising on his inner thigh. 

“Morphine and local anaesthetic,” he commanded and a syringe was instantly pressed into his outstretched hand.

If the crime life didn’t work out, Seokmin had a bright future in nursing at the very least. He was a fast learner and, so long as he had some decent encouragement, really not as squeamish as he initially appeared. 

Jeonghan injected the anaesthetic into the skin around the bullet wound, followed swiftly by the morphine in the hope that it would keep the next part as painless as possible. Because he was going to have to squeeze. Hard.

“Hansol, talk to him,” he said without looking up, hoping that giving the boy something to do would stop him from going crazy if Joshua started to scream. “He needs you right now.”

Jeonghan inhaled deeply, positioned his hands on either side of the injury and then started to apply the pressure. The amount of pus and blood that began oozing out was, frankly, terrifying but Seokmin cleaned it up almost as quickly as it could come up without even being prompted.

Joshua’s leg started to spasm weakly, bare feet twitching, and Jeonghan heard the gentle shushing Hansol was making to try and keep him still. They had to speed things up before the anaesthetic wore off.

It took much longer than it should have but once the only fluid coming to the top of the wound was clear liquids and blood, Jeonghan was satisfied that he could finally start sterilising.

“Can you bandage this while I move on?” he asked, and Seokmin gave him a minute nod. "Don't forget to do his ankles, too."

Making his way back up the table, the doctor sent a brief glance to the side where he caught sight of Mingyu holding Junhui’s head steady while Seungkwan forcefully popped his nose back into place.

Another thing to do when this was all over would be to run a first aid seminar so he could teach these oafs how to treat dislocated joints, broken bones and bleeding.

Joshua’s hands weren’t the worst things that Jeonghan had seen in his time as a resident, but it still made his stomach somersault unpleasantly as he imagined the excruciating pain the boy must have endured with that many pins protruding from his exposed nailbeds.

Seokmin worked around him, locating more cuts to be cleaned and bandaged. He removed the jacket that Junhui had draped over the patient’s chest, exposing the wash of blacks, blues, purples, cigarette burns, teeth marks and bruises not dissimilar to hickeys that were decorating Joshua’s torso.

His ribcage looked painful and tender and at least two ribs were broken, poking up at the underside of his skin in an attempt to feel the air but the rattling had been reduced to a wheeze with the aid of the oxygen mask so Jeonghan chalked it up to fluids rather than a puncture.

Thank God. A chest tube would have been a little too much for him at this point in time. 

“Seokmin, grab a pair of tweezers and start on the other hand.”

The pharmacist needed no further instruction as the two of them began removing pins and bandaging fingers and wrists, slowly but surely working their way up his arms towards his torso and chest. 

That part would prove difficult.

“Hansol … I need you to hold him,” Jeonghan said, gently prodding along Joshua’s bruised side. “He can’t struggle for this next bit.”

He needed to set the bone back in place. It was going to be indescribably painful.

He glanced up to where Hansol had his hands either side of Joshua’s head, nodding vehemently with tears pouring from his eyes, and Jeonghan had to force his own back down as sweat trickled uncomfortably down his neck and back.

“Get the morphine ready.”

Taking Joshua’s arm, he gingerly laid it across his broken body and, without further warning, pushed the displaced rib back into its original position with a grotesque clunking click.

The fist he got in the face for his efforts was enough to tell him that Joshua was once again awake and screaming in agony. 

“Give him the morphine!” Jeonghan yelled, holding Joshua’s wrist in one hand and trying to stem the bloody flow from his nose with the other.

After a few moments of strangled wails, the cries devolved into muffled moans slipping from behind the oxygen mask. The plastic muzzle was splattered with flecks of blood which, at the very least, meant that his screaming had worked up some of the fluids from his lungs.

Jeonghan would have to get Kihyun to source them a thoracoscope sooner rather than later so he could get the rest out.

But there was nothing more he could do for Joshua right now. 

Just when he thought he could finally breathe a sigh of relief, a new commotion broke out at the door and Seungcheol burst in with Soonyoung’s unconscious body draped over his back and Chan following right behind him, anxiously biting on his bottom lip.

Moments later, Wonwoo joined the congregation, dropping an armload of guns and ammo at the door, and Minghao brought up the rear, looking pale and sweaty and more than a little unsteady on his feet.

“Thank fuck …” Jihoon gasped, his voice sounding faint and distant. “Wonwoo, you’re going to have to take over.”

Clearly, Jeonghan hadn’t been paying close enough attention.

“Shit,” he hissed, hurrying over and carefully folding the tube to avoid any air bubbles before he pulled it free of the donor’s arm. “I’m sorry, Jihoon.”

Seokmin traded the needle for a clean one and their combined effort meant that they had it inserted into Wonwoo’s vein in less than thirty seconds.

Seungcheol had already laid Soonyoung across one of the beds and, as badly as Jeonghan wanted to pull him into a bone-crushing hug, the excessive bleeding that was slowly staining the pillow scarlet was slightly more worrying.

“He’s breathing,” Seungcheol panted as Jeonghan grabbed a handful of gauze and held it to Soonyoung’s wound. “I’m pretty sure he got skimmed with a bullet. I couldn’t stop the bleeding.”

He sounded exhausted, panicked, shaken, eyes frequently shooting over to where Hansol was carefully stroking Joshua’s hair and Chan was clutching his bandaged hand.

“It’s okay,” Jeonghan assured him, forcing the warmest smile he could muster. “Scalp wounds are the prima donnas of medicine. They act far more dramatic than they really are.”

His metaphor had a slightly breathless chuckle forcing its way up Seungcheol’s throat and Jeonghan hadn’t realised until that moment just how terrified he’d been that he wouldn’t ever hear that sound again.

“I was starting to think you wouldn’t come back,” he admitted under his breath as he pulled the gauze away from Soonyoung’s face and started to stitch up the mangled tatters of his ear. “I was starting to think that all of you were dead.”

“We almost were,” Seungcheol scoffed bitterly as he gently combed Soonyoung’s bloodied hair out of the way of the needle. “At one point I had a gun to my head and all I could think of was you.”

All of Jeonghan’s muscles froze up and it took every ounce of willpower he possessed not to break down right there and then at the mere suggestion of Seungcheol thinking of him just seconds before his death.

“Do we have another oxygen mask?” he asked instead, unable to keep the slight tremor from his voice.

Somebody deposited the tank at his feet and he stooped, taking the opportunity to wipe the first traces of moisture from his eyes, before straightening back up and securing the equipment over Soonyoung’s face.

Seungcheol disappeared for a split second, probably to check on Joshua, but as soon as he returned, the words tumbled from Jeonghan’s lips without his permission. 

“Don’t ever leave me like that again. It was terrifying.”

“I know,” came the shameful reply. “I’m sorry.”

Jeonghan gave the bandage he’d encompassed Soonyoung’s head with one last check to ensure it was tight enough before he allowed his façade to slip completely.

Stumbling away from the bed, he caught a brief view of Seungkwan steering Jihoon into a chair and Seokmin stitching up Junhui’s eyebrow before he was ripping off his gloves and spiralling into a fit of tight-chested gasps.

He couldn’t do it. He was sleep deprived, starving, dehydrated and grossly under qualified to treat these injuries. Soonyoung would be scarred, Joshua would be damaged beyond repair, both physically and mentally, and Jeonghan couldn’t do it.

“Baby, come here.”

Arms folded themselves over his back and he buried his nose in the crook of Seungcheol’s neck, too desperate for comfort to feel disgusted by the sweat and blood he could smell on the leader’s skin.

“I’m sorry,” he whispered. “I’m trying to keep it together. I’m trying.”

“It’s okay,” came the softened reply as fingers started carding through his hair. “You can fall apart now. You did it. You’re amazing.”

He kept up the steady flow of compliments and praises until, finally, Jeonghan felt like he was brave enough to pull back from the embrace and face the world again.

Now that he wasn’t scrambling to save somebody’s life, he could inspect the injuries his boyfriend – _boyfriend_ – had sustained.

There was a fairly impressive wound beneath his hairline that wasn’t deep enough to require stitches but would need closing if it wasn’t going to scar. Jeonghan ran his finger over it, as though trying to smooth the edges of the broken skin.

“They hurt your beautiful face,” he whispered, his entire world lighting up when Seungcheol grinned in response. “Can I kill them?”

“They’re already dead,” his boyfriend – _BOYFRIEND_ – assured him, wrapping his arms around Jeonghan’s waist and interlocking his fingers over the small of his back. “The Mins obliterated them all. They won’t be a problem anymore. I promise you.”

It seemed too good to be true. It seemed too unbelievable that all the bloodlust and murders and torture and kidnappings were truly over. That Jeonghan had actually survived.

And he opened his mouth to voice as much but found himself cut off by a deafening crash.

All attention snapped towards the source of the commotion and Jeonghan found himself wondering how the hell the world could still be throwing complications at them after everything they’d already endured that night.

From the way the medical instruments were strewn over the floor and the cart was overturned, Minghao had brought the entire structure down with him as he’d collapsed and now lay, crumpled and immobile, on the tiles.

“Shit …” Seungcheol hissed as both he and Jeonghan started forwards.

Mingyu was already on the ground, eyes wide with worry and hand gently shaking his fallen friend’s shoulder when Jeonghan dropped to his knees and felt for a pulse beneath Minghao’s jaw.

“What happened? What’s wrong with him?”

His heartbeat was irregular. His breathing was laboured.

“Pick him up,” Jeonghan instructed, already scrambling to find another pair of gloves. “Put him on the bed over here. Seokmin, stay with Joshua unless I need you, and can somebody watch Soonyoung?”

The gentleness with which Mingyu cradled Minghao against his chest made it almost impossible to believe just how frequently they fought and argued with each other. He looked a little bit like a kicked puppy sitting vigil beside his unconscious owner.

“How did we miss this?” Seungcheol cursed under his breath as he helped transfer the patient from Mingyu’s arms to the last available bed they owned. “He was fine. I swear to God, he was fine.”

He certainly wasn’t now.

Jeonghan’s mind was filled with possible diagnoses that all included a delayed onset of symptoms but, as his hands roamed expertly over Minghao’s head and neck, he couldn’t find anything wrong. 

There were a few nicks, scrapes and bruises from the battle but his pupils were equal and responsive, ruling out a brain injury, and his foot twitched when Jeonghan drove his thumb into the ridge of the boy’s toe, disproving any spinal trauma.

He lifted his shirt and, just like that, the mystery was solved. Minghao’s chest was a colossal mass of purple bruising. 

“Blunt force trauma to the chest,” Jeonghan muttered under his breath, addressing no one in particular as he carefully pushed his fingers into the kid’s abdomen. “He's bleeding internally.” 

He snatched the scissors off the bedside table and made quick work of cutting Minghao’s shirt off, pressing firmly along the bruising and tapping the backs of his hands in search of any broken bones or air pockets that might indicate lung failure.

Both sides of the boy’s chest were rising and falling in sync despite the irregular pace and stuttered pulse but that, by no means, meant that this wasn’t serious.

“Seokmin!” Jeonghan called, sending a wary glance at Mingyu who was still standing silently at the side of the bed, gaping at the unsteady spasming of Minghao’s chest. “Please tell me we have another oxygen mask!”

The equipment was dropped beside Minghao’s hip and Jeonghan instantly slipped the plastic dome over his patient’s lax face, kicked the tank closer to the bed and then turned it on. 

“Cheol,” he hissed lowly, trying to make it so that Mingyu wouldn’t hear what he was about to say. “It may just be some bruising. Nothing’s broken and his lungs sound fine so, if anything, it’s a contusion but his symptoms were delayed and I can’t exactly do a chest X-Ray. He could still deteriorate.”

Seungcheol cursed under his breath and Jeonghan knew exactly how he felt. The same thoughts were racing around his head at breakneck speed, accompanying his worries for Joshua and Soonyoung and even Jihoon. 

_God, not Minghao._

He cared about all of these people more than he ever thought he could but he wasn’t sure he would be able to take it if he lost this kid.

“Not him …” he muttered under his breath, eyes screwed tightly shut as he continued to feel for any breaks he might have missed. “Please … Not this one …”

“We’ll monitor him overnight,” Seungcheol decided, laying a hand on Mingyu’s shoulder and squeezing reassuringly despite the morbid nature of their situation. “If anything changes, we’ll get Kihyun to take him to a hospital. Hao shouldn’t be too well known by the authorities yet.”

Mingyu still hadn’t moved, still hadn’t spoken. He was just gawping at Minghao’s chest as though willing the boy’s traumatised lungs to keep inflating and deflating in regular intervals.

Jeonghan pivoted around the room, trying not to think about all the possible things that could be going wrong in Minghao’s chest cavity as he checked on his other patients. 

Jihoon was still too dizzy to stand but his colour was slowly returning to him and Jeonghan was confident that, after plenty of rest, he would be back to his grumpy and irritable self.

Junhui was sitting at Joshua’s side with an ice pack in his hand as Seokmin gingerly cleaned the dried blood from his face, gently reminding him to keep applying the cold compress to his swollen nose. 

Soonyoung’s wound hadn’t bled through the bandage, indicating that the leakage may have finally been stemmed, and Jeonghan predicted that, best case scenario, he would wake up by morning. 

Joshua, however, probably wouldn’t. At least, Jeonghan hoped he wouldn’t. They didn’t have enough morphine to keep him completely pain free for much longer and, frankly, he was severely sleep deprived. A long rest was one of the many things he needed. 

All the injured were tended to. Finally. Except for Seungcheol.

“Alright,” Jeonghan called out. “Anyone who can, leave, take a shower, get some rest and tell me if you need painkillers or bandages. Don’t keep it to yourself. Hansol, you can stay to keep an eye on Shua. Seokmin, you take Soonyoung. Jihoon can stay here for the night, too.”

Nobody looked like they particularly wanted to go anywhere but there were pretty obvious bags beneath each of their eyes and they were all drenched in sweat and each other’s blood. And Seungcheol could see it, too.

“Guys,” he spoke up, stepping into the middle of the room so everybody could see him. “We are okay. We did okay. No, more than that, we did pretty fucking fantastic. We helped the Mins take down Sungjong, we got Shua back and nobody died. I call that an achievement. Now, all of you, go get some rest. None of you are allowed back in here for the next twelve hours.”

Chan mumbled a few protests at being told to leave Joshua’s side but, eventually, all the people who weren’t sick, hurt or needed as a physician had left the room.

Seokmin removed the line from Wonwoo’s arm and he left, too, looking significantly paler than before but not unsteady enough to warrant his own medical admission. Another thing they should have access to was blood. 

“Your turn,” Jeonghan ordered, pulling up a chair and pushing Seungcheol into it. 

There wasn’t a lot he could do about the bruises but the cut on his forehead was in need of some attention. 

It must have been uncomfortable but Seungcheol showed absolutely no sign of pain, staring up at Jeonghan with those galactical eyes as the doctor cleaned the excess blood and secured a butterfly bandage over the wound. 

Needless to say, he felt dead on his feet. 

No amount of overnight shifts could have prepared him for the improvisational procedures he’d needed to perform in the last few hours. Even Hansol’s burns hadn’t been nearly as gruelling and he still needed to monitor Minghao and Joshua’s conditions. 

Mingyu was refusing to move from his friend’s side, their hands intertwined atop the ruffled bed sheets and their heads sharing the same pillow. 

Mingyu was whispering something in Minghao’s ear, stroking the boy’s hair with his free hand and occasionally reaching up to mop the sweat running down the sides of his face. 

The sight was heartbreaking. 

“Calm down, baby,” Seungcheol whispered, sensing the return of Jeonghan’s anxiety and looping his arms around his waist in response. “We’re okay. We’re all okay.”

Indifferent to the people who were still in the room, Jeonghan straddled his boyfriend’s thighs and buried his face in the crook of his neck, letting himself relax into the warmth with the reminder that Seungcheol was alive, Joshua was back, the Mins were going home and everything was going to be alright. 

“Let Seokmin keep watch here. Shower with me.”

The leader didn’t wait for an answer, simply rising from the chair and leaving Jeonghan no choice but to keep his legs wrapped around that sturdy waist as Seungcheol hoisted him into the air. 

He didn’t miss the wince and he knew that the boss’ ribs must still be hurting him but, almost effortlessly, he carried his burden straight to his room and deposited him gently on the bed. 

Seungcheol stripped down to his boxers and then glanced expectantly over at Jeonghan who merely looked down to where his fingers were nervously tangled in the bedsheets at his sides.

“Hannie … baby,” Seungcheol murmured, squatting in front of him and taking hold of his hands. 

“I … I just … I’ve never …”

“And I’m not asking you to, baby. It’s just a shower and if you prefer to do it separately then we can but we both need a wash.”

He leaned forwards to peck him on the lips and Jeonghan couldn’t help the shy smile from stretching over his lips.

“We both need a wash,” he repeated as he pulled his own shirt over his head. 

Seungcheol’s chest was broad and battered, littered in wounds of varying age and severity. The red of his dragon tattoo stood out starkly against his pale skin and the pink puckered scar in his side was almost eclipsed by the smudgy bruising over his ribs. 

In contrast, Jeonghan’s milky flesh was smooth, flawless. Not a scar, barely any muscle. Jeonghan was only an inch shorter but Seungcheol’s presence alone made him feel so small and encompassed and … safe. 

“Come on, Hannie,” Seungcheol encouraged, taking his hand and leading him to the bathroom.


	25. It's Really Not Okay

The med bay was quiet when Jeonghan returned. He’d left Seungcheol asleep, clean and bandaged after a few lazy kisses and some much-needed pampering from both parties. 

He was pleased to see that both Jihoon and Soonyoung were awake and conversing softly on Soonyoung’s bed. It looked as if the smaller of the two was making fun of the bandage looped around the patient’s head.

Mingyu was snuggled close to Minghao, finally unconscious, Hansol was slouched over in his chair, head resting against Joshua’s shoulder, and Seokmin was perched on a pillow in the corner of the room beside the fallen shelf no one had bothered to set right.

He gave Jeonghan a sleepy wave, cheeks bulging with food, and held out one of the rice balls in his hands as the doctor dragged himself over.

“Jun made them,” he mumbled through a full mouth. “He should be back with tea soon.”

Jeonghan flopped down on the pillow beside him and took the offered rice ball, thankful to finally have something to eat after so long. Almost immediately, Seokmin leaned over and rested his head against Jeonghan’s shoulder. 

It sparked a warm sensation in his gut to know that most of them felt comfortable enough to share these affectionate gestures with him. 

Junhui walked in with a kitchen tray and began to distribute cups of tea, gently waking Hansol to give him one, and leaving another on the table next to Mingyu. Jeonghan was surprised, therefore, to see Mingyu reach over and take it. Either he’d been expecting it to be there or he’d been awake the entire time.

“He isn’t asleep,” Seokmin confirmed with a weary smile, like he’d read Jeonghan’s mind. “Mingyu almost never sleeps and he certainly wouldn’t while Minghao’s like that.”

“They’re really close,” Jeonghan observed, watching as Mingyu readjusted himself into a sitting position so he could sip his tea, still running the fingers of his free hand through Minghao’s hair. 

Junhui dropped a pillow of his down beside them and then made himself comfortable, sliding the remaining cups of tea over. 

His nose was still a little swollen and discoloured but, fortunately, Seungkwan seemed to have set it properly and the skin hadn’t broken so it would more than likely heal perfectly and restore Junhui to his previous pretty self.

“It’s crazy to be in a room with Minghao and Mingyu and not have to break up a fight.”

“Yeah,” Seokmin mused blankly. “But, given the circumstances, I’d rather wrestle nunchucks away from Hao than see him like this.”

He braced his hand against Jeonghan’s shoulder and used it to help lever his body into a vertical position, stretching out his probably very sore and stiffened muscles. 

“I hope you don’t mind but I need a shower and a nap.”

“Sure,” Jeonghan dismissed, waving him in the direction of the door. “Go. I’ll keep watch here.”

True to his word, he got up and slowly circled his way around the room. He waved his fingers in Soonyoung’s face, asked him a couple of generic questions to test for any sign of a concussion and checked the tightness of the bandage. 

Joshua’s leg would need to be redressed, the oxygen tanks would need refilling at some point in the near future and both Jihoon and Hansol would be far more comfortable sleeping in their own beds. 

It took some persuading but, finally, he managed to get a very sleepy and reluctant Hansol to follow Jihoon and Soonyoung out of the room, each of them heading for the comfort of their respective bedrooms. 

Jeonghan didn’t want to even try with Mingyu, though. He was still yet to say a word since Minghao had collapsed and, although the kid’s heart rate had returned to a safer pace, he still looked painfully concerned. 

Giving the two of them some space, Jeonghan filled a basin with water and began to gently scrub the excess blood from Joshua’s body with a flannel. 

“Do you think his face will scar?” Junhui asked suddenly, sinking into a chair on the opposite side of the table. “I think he’d freak out if it did.”

“I thought he didn’t like his face,” Jeonghan poked, cautiously lifting his patient’s arm and turning it over so he could clean the few bits of skin on his hand that weren’t bandaged. 

Junhui just shrugged, eyes fixed on his friend’s face, “A lot of us have ended up in shitty positions solely for being young and attractive. Seungkwan, Seokmin, Shua, me … but being disfigured or scarred would still be pretty damn upsetting.”

Jeonghan scoffed slightly, “You don’t have a single scar on you. How would you know he’d be upset?” 

He lay Joshua’s arm back down on the table, suddenly wary of Junhui’s uncharacteristic silence. The boy seemed to be having some internal debate inside his head before he finally got to his feet and lifted his shirt. 

His body was perfect. Tight muscles, small waist and narrow hips that tapered off in a flawless V shape. His skin was smooth and lightly tanned and, just as Jeonghan had said, there wasn’t a scar on him. 

Except one.

One huge, dark slash carved deep into his abdomen, stretching from his left pectoral to his right hip. Roughly three centimetres wide, indicating that nobody had bothered closing it to let it heal. 

The edges were jagged and clumsy and it was deep enough that his chest, rib and hip bone would most likely have been very visible before it had scarred over. 

“Jun …” Jeonghan breathed, all the breath knocked out of him with the force of a speeding train.

Mingyu was already up and off the bed, “Jun, what the fuck?”

“Don’t worry about it,” Junhui dismissed, dropping his shirt and smirking at the looks of shock on their faces. “Obviously, I turned out just fine.”

“I’m sorry …”

“Don’t be. I know people get curious about me. Where I came from, what I did to get here, why I am the way I am but trust me when I say that you are all better off not knowing.” 

He sat back down and reached out to smooth one of the pieces of tape that had started to unstick itself from the bandage around Joshua’s throat, indicating that the conversation was over. 

It still took a few moments for Mingyu to return to Minghao’s side and Jeonghan to continue bathing Joshua, his mind racing at the speed of light. 

There was no way a wound like that had been accidental. And it wasn’t just the slash of a knife either. Somebody had taken their time to carve a chasm in Junhui’s body and, with his limited knowledge of the boy and just how off-kilter he acted, Jeonghan knew he must have been awake for the entire thing.

\------------------------

“I leave you alone for one fucking second and you take a slab of concrete to the chest!”

“I had it under control.”

“You almost fucking died.”

“Stop being dramatic. Why the fuck are you so dramatic?”

Jeonghan cracked one eye open from where he’d been curled up on the pillows in the corner of the room to investigate the source of the suddenly very loud bout of conversation.

Minghao was awake and clearly coherent enough to argue. He’d removed the oxygen mask to make his point but was now shakily fumbling to put it back in place, solidifying Jeonghan’s suspicion of a pulmonary contusion.

“Stop it,” Mingyu chastised, slapping the patient’s hands away and helping him resecure the muzzle.

Even from where he was lying on the floor, Jeonghan could see the shaky spasms of Minghao’s chest as he inhaled in short, shallow gasps.

The two fell quiet for a while and Jeonghan allowed his eyes to flutter closed once more but they flew open a second later when the sound of a deep hitched breath and a choked sob cut through the silence. 

Mingyu was crying.

Minghao reached up with his skinny spindly arms and pulled the larger body onto the bed beside him, holding tight while Mingyu cried and comforting him with soft shushes and gentle kisses to his hair and face. 

And Jeonghan was wondering how he’d missed it.

Of course, they were a couple. He’d never, not for a moment, stopped to wonder if there were more relationships embedded in the organisation. With his own sexuality still up in the air, he’d never taken the time to consider anyone else’s. 

What else had he been too oblivious to see? Wonwoo and Junhui? Hansol and Seungkwan? Chan and Jihoon? Okay, now he was just getting carried away. 

He knew he should check on Minghao, ask him if he was in any pain and so on, but he wanted Mingyu to keep his dignity. To alert them to his consciousness, he made a show of shuffling around on his pillows before sitting up with an exaggerated groan and stretch of his muscles. 

When he opened his eyes again, there was no sign of the break down that had been taking place mere seconds previously. If he hadn’t seen it himself, he wouldn’t have believed Mingyu had just been pouring his heart out. 

“Hey, kid, how do you feel?” he asked, wandering over to the bed and gently pressing down on Minghao’s bruised abdomen. “And tell the truth.”

Minghao blinked and then deflated right before their eyes. 

“It really fucking hurts to breathe,” he admitted on a ragged exhale from behind the oxygen mask. 

But there was no more wheezing. Thank God.

“I’ll send somebody out for more pain meds today,” Jeonghan said, running his fingers over the boy’s battered ribs. “Shua’s going to need some and so do a few others. Everything else seems fine. Stay on the oxygen for a while and tell me if anything changes.”

Minghao nodded. 

“Mingyu, did you want to shower here or something? I can ask Jun to bring you some clothes?”

Mingyu sent his boyfriend a wary look, clearly uncertain about leaving him, and Jeonghan leapt to reassure him, “He’s fine. You’ll only be in the next room and I’d be back in a minute.” 

“Go, Gyu. I’m fine,” Minghao whispered. “And get me a snack when you come back.”

Mingyu let out a defeated sigh but finally agreed to step away from Minghao’s side and Jeonghan left them to it in search for a pair of fresh clean clothes. 

The halls were still empty, everybody probably still fast asleep in the wake of their heroic battle. Jihoon’s light was still on, casting golden shadows from beneath his door, but Jeonghan didn’t want to disturb him. 

He passed Seungcheol’s room and took a moment to loiter in the doorway, smiling at the unconscious figure spread out on the bed in a state of complete and utter bliss. He sent a silent thanks up to whoever was letting the leader sleep so long. 

“Perv.”

Jeonghan flinched and span around to see Chan giggling at the end of the hall before darting out of sight. It was so easy to forget that the kid was only just leaving childhood but it was moments such as this that he truly acted like the teenager he was. 

Jeonghan found Junhui’s room fairly quickly and gave a tentative knock, pushing the door open when he didn’t receive an answer. It was empty. Typical. Junhui was always where he shouldn’t be and never detectable when he was needed. 

Deciding to get Mingyu’s clothes himself, he dug through the closet and found a set of acceptable items that he took with him back down to the med bay. 

Mingyu had already returned to Minghao’s side, his hair dripping wet and a towel wrapped around his waist, as if he couldn’t handle being away from his man any longer. 

“I hope you’re planning to clean that up,” Jeonghan scolded, depositing the clothes at the foot of Minghao’s bed and gesturing towards the trail of water Mingyu had left along the floor. 

At least the boy had the grace to look sheepish, turning around to tug on the pair of sweats, and that was when Jeonghan saw his back. 

The skin there was a complete mess of criss-crossing scars, some of them lumpy and protruding from his body and others looking as if they’d melted into each other, flesh stretching grotesquely in an attempt to cover up exposed wounds.

It was almost as bad as Junhui’s, but Minghao didn’t react - he’d clearly seen it many times before - so Jeonghan kept his mouth shut and made no comment. 

Instead, he perched on the edge of Soonyoung’s now-vacated bed and chose to watch the slow rise and fall of Joshua’s chest. 

Having covered up his mutilated body, Mingyu left the room, probably to get the snack he’d been sent for, and as soon as he was gone, Minghao removed his mask. 

“Can you … I don’t know … Not tell the others?” he croaked.

Apparently Jeonghan’s attempt to pretend he hadn’t seen the romantic exchange wasn’t as believable as he’d thought. 

“I won’t if you don’t want me to.”

“It’s not that we want to hide,” Minghao defended at once. “It’s just … we need this to be ours, you know? It’s … personal.” 

“No need to explain, Hao. My lips are sealed.”

Minghao gave a grateful smile and replaced his mask, leaning back against his pillow and allowing his eyes to flutter closed. 

Seungcheol finally walked in at around 3 and Jeonghan couldn’t help the smile that stretched across his lips at the sight of him looking so rested and refreshed. 

“Any progress, baby?” he asked, looping one hand around the back of Jeonghan’s neck and pressing their lips together as if it was the most natural thing in the world. 

And it felt that way, too. Like anything else would just be wrong. Jeonghan liked that feeling. He didn’t want the butterflies in his stomach and the airy sensation in his head to ever fade away. 

“Hao was awake a few minutes ago,” he relayed, still grinning stupidly. “Shua hasn’t changed. I switched his tank about an hour ago and redressed his leg but he didn’t budge.” 

Seungcheol hopped onto the bed beside him and reeled him in close, tangling their legs and sliding his hand into Jeonghan’s hair. They kissed, slowly, thoroughly, until Jeonghan felt breathless. 

“Honestly, I feel like there are a million other places that you can do that,” Hansol said by way of greeting, prompting Minghao to snigger slightly from behind his mask. 

Jeonghan was too giddy to even feel embarrassed. 

The new arrival pulled over a chair and made himself comfortable at Joshua’s side, laying his fingers lightly against the boy’s bruised forehead, “He looks cleaner.”

“Yeah, I cleaned him up and changed his dressing,” Jeonghan answered.

Hansol nodded in response and then there was silence for a while before, “Why isn’t he waking up?” 

Suddenly feeling that sensation of euphoria slither from his body, Jeonghan glanced at Seungcheol who, thankfully, got the hint and moved to sit beside Hansol so he could pull the kid into a one-armed embrace.

“Give him time,” he murmured. “He’s been through a lot.” 

Jeonghan had covered up the hickeys, the bite marks, any traces of … _that…_ But he was fairly certain that everybody knew by now. 

"I owe you an apology,” Hansol whispered back but Seungcheol didn’t even allow him to finish.

“I get it. And I accept your apology. Just don’t let it happen again.”

In that moment, Seungcheol seemed very much like a father and it was then Jeonghan realised that, to some of these kids, he was the closest they would ever get. 

“Shit!”

It had come from nowhere but, without warning, Joshua’s arm was clumsily flailing towards his face, as though he was trying to swipe away the oxygen mask, tears streaking down his cheeks and chest spasming with hyperventilated breaths.

Jeonghan was off the bed in seconds as Hansol reached out, failing to catch the hand that Joshua was swinging like a weapon, desperately battling with the invisible foe in his nightmares. 

“Step back,” Jeonghan ordered. “Don’t let him hit you. It will hurt him more than it’ll hurt you.” 

Seungcheol pulled Hansol further back from the bed, the kid’s hands pressed over his mouth as his eyes welled up with salted pearls of glistening grief. 

“We’re almost out of morphine,” Jeonghan hissed, seizing Joshua’s arm and holding it steady so he could inject one of pre-measured doses Seokmin had left beside the table. “Cheol, can you get someone on that?” 

Seungcheol nodded, tugging his phone out of his pocket as Joshua’s fight slowly died and his limbs went slack against the table.

“We can’t keep giving him this stuff,” Jeonghan mumbled, combing Joshua’s sweat-soaked hair out of the way and readjusting the oxygen mask. “He’ll develop a drug problem.”

“Kihyun’s on it,” Seungcheol declared, returning to the conversation and resting one hand against Joshua’s forehead. “What’s happening to him?” 

“He’s stuck in a nightmare. He’s in so much pain that his body is trying to shut down but his mind keeps trying to wake up and, when it does, he can’t differentiate this place from the one he was in when Sungjong had him. He’s reliving the torture over and over again and … I can’t help him.” 

Not for the first time since he’d been here, Jeonghan was doubting his ability as a doctor. 

There really wasn’t anything he could do for Joshua other than keep him in a drugged-up state of temporary painlessness that would have to come to an end at some point if they wanted him to ever start the recovery process. 

If they had an EEG machine, they would probably see the boy’s brain waves going crazy as he re experienced whatever hell he’d been through in an endless repetitive cycle, and Jeonghan wanted to take it all away but he just couldn’t. 

It killed him inside to know that he was the reason Joshua was so hurt in the first place. 

“I can’t help him.”

The boy’s eye was still rolling around in his skull, entire body trembling and breath slowly becoming more and more constricted as panic wrapped its iron tentacles around his chest and started to crush his already fragmented ribs.

“Joshua?” Jeonghan tried, carefully sliding his fingers into the patient’s palm. “Joshua, squeeze if you can hear me.”

His fingers couldn’t curl properly and it was probably too painful for him to try but, despite that, the hand in Jeonghan’s grip gave a purposeful twitch and Hansol actually gasped in relief.

He was clinging to his friend’s other hand, even though Joshua’s broken fingers were incapable of clinging back, and his watering eyes were fixed on Jeonghan’s face, shimmering with hope and relief at the improvement he’d thought would never arrive.

The morphine hadn’t knocked him out like it should have. Instead, it had numbed his pain just enough for his mind to regain consciousness. Or, at least, semi-consciousness.

“Squeeze if you know where you are.”

Tears were pooling in Joshua’s eyes, slithering free from his lashes and gliding down the side of his face to rest in his hair, and he was still yet to focus on anything specific as his throat continued to sound like it was closing up.

There was no squeeze.

“Shua,” Seungcheol interjected, hand cupping the top of his second’s head. “Shua, blink if you know who I am.”

There was a pause, Joshua’s widened pupil finally coming to rest on the face that loomed above him before his eyelid twitched.

“You know …” Seungcheol nodded, as though he was reassuring himself. “So you know I’m safe, right? You know I’m going to keep you safe. You know that we got you out of there and that you’re going to be okay.”

Now Seungcheol was the only thing Joshua seemed capable of looking at. The sight of his best friend and saviour was probably the first comfort he’d consciously received since his abduction but Jeonghan was still seriously concerned about the frequency of his wheezing.

“Calm him down,” he hissed at Seungcheol, digging his fingers into the pulse point at Joshua’s wrist. “His heart’s too fast.”

“You’re not there anymore, Shua. I swear to you. You’re not there. You’re in the med bay with me and Jeonghan and Hansol. Mingyu and Minghao are here, too.”

Mingyu suddenly appeared at Hansol’s side, setting the ice cream tub he’d bought from the kitchen down on one of the counters so he could rest a hand over Joshua’s knee and squeeze tightly.

“Shua …” Hansol choked. “Shua, look at me.”

He didn’t. His breaths were rattling, his pulse was picking up, his feet were starting to twitch as though he wanted to convince himself that they were still there and the tears in his eyes must have been blurring his vision to the point of virtual blindness.

And Jeonghan didn’t know what to do.

Joshua’s mask was fogging up, indecipherable rasps leaving his lips, gaze resolutely locked on Seungcheol’s face and it took them all far too long to realise that his mouth was actually forming distinguishable shapes.

“Take his mask off,” Jeonghan ordered, wary of Joshua’s limited lung capacity but also appreciating how hard the boy was trying to communicate.

Seungcheol pulled the muzzle down, leaving it resting over the patient’s bandaged throat and leaned forward, turning his head to the side and getting his ear as close to Joshua’s bloodied lips as possible.

The room was completely silent, Minghao watching nervously from the bed in the corner, and the ghostly rasp was only just audible.

“’m … sorry …”

Seungcheol raised his head ever so slightly and brought a hand up to cup the side of Joshua’s face, responding in a voice so unbelievably gentle for somebody with such a violent history.

“There is nothing to be sorry for. Okay? Absolutely nothing.”

But, instead of bringing comfort, his words seemed to stimulate even more panic. Joshua’s head started to shake from side to side and Jeonghan was glad that he didn’t need to tell Seungcheol to keep his skull steady or else he would disturb the wound in his neck.

“… sorry … sorry …” he started repeating, free hand fumbling clumsily for a grip on his leader’s shirt. “’m sorry … ‘m … so … so sorry …”

“He has to calm down,” Jeonghan whispered in Seungcheol’s ear. “I can’t give him anything else. He could have a heart attack.”

Seungcheol opened his mouth to say something else but Joshua’s sobs reached a climax, one working eye alarmingly wide and words almost unintelligible through tears, spit and blood.

“… told …” he wheezed, hand weakly thudding against Seungcheol’s chest. “… told … ‘m sorry … ‘m so sorry … I … I told …”

Jeonghan still had absolutely no clue what he was trying to say but, from the way Seungcheol and Mingyu both turned an entire shade paler and exchanged a look of pure horror, they did.

Hansol was still crying too much, clutching his best friend’s hand with both of his own and unable to focus on anything other than the irregular spasms of his chest.

“What did you tell?” Seungcheol murmured, stroking his thumb against Joshua’s cheek. “It’s okay, Shua. Just tell me what you told.”

He was speaking so softly but Joshua still exploded into a fit of wheezing sobs, his throat emitting a series of devastatingly strangled noises as he fought for breath amid all the trauma to his chest, lungs and throat.

Mingyu’s eyes were closed, head hanging, hands braced against the edge of the table. Seungcheol was nodding but his lips were firmly pressed together and any trace of relief and happiness he’d held for Joshua’s awakening was gone.

“’m … sorry … ‘m so … so … sorry … ‘m … so … ‘m … had … to … had to make it … I had to … make it … stop … ‘m so sor … it … it hurt … had to … make it sto … stop hurting …”

Now Jeonghan thought he understood.

And it shattered his heart into a billion pieces.

“Cheol …” he whimpered, tugging on the back of Seungcheol’s jacket as his own tears started to fall without permission. “Cheol, tell him it’s okay. Tell him, Cheol!”

He couldn’t stand to see Joshua suffering like this. He couldn’t stand to see him begging for forgiveness through shattered ribs and a throat that had spent almost a week caged in barbed wire. He couldn’t stand to see him quite literally suffocating on his own guilt.

“He hasn’t done anything wrong,” Jeonghan sobbed, tugging harder as Seungcheol continued to stare at Joshua’s sodden face. “Tell him he hasn’t!”

It wasn’t fair. Joshua had been tortured brutally, mercilessly and relentlessly. He’d been there when Sungjong made his friends think he was dead. He hadn’t believed that anybody was coming for him.

What he’d done, he’d done because he was in pain and blaming him for something like that just wasn’t fair.

“It’s okay, Shua,” Seungcheol said at last, carefully returning the oxygen mask to his friend’s face. “You did okay. No one’s mad at you. It’s okay. I promise. You’re okay.”

He glanced up at Hansol, murmuring something Jeonghan couldn’t quite make out, and the younger boy nodded, circling around the table and taking the leader’s space in Joshua’s line of sight so Seungcheol could step away.

“Fuck …” he hissed under his breath, interlocking his fingers behind his head and taking several regulated breaths. “Fuck you, Sungjong … Fuck …”

Minghao looked like he was trying to edge off his bed, either to scuttle over to Joshua’s side or to join Seungcheol in his quiet rage, but Jeonghan ordered him to stay put with a single glare.

Joshua’s ragged wheezing was still the loudest noise in the room, slicing through Hansol’s whispered comforts, and Jeonghan felt anxious leaving his side but, at the same time, he was just as worried that Seungcheol was about to punch something.

“Cheol,” he breathed, moving over and resting his hands on his boyfriend’s hips. “Cheol, it’s okay.”

“It’s not,” Seungcheol contradicted him, raking his fingers through his hair and stepping away from Jeonghan’s grip. “It’s really not, Han. You have no idea …”

Jeonghan supposed he didn’t. He wasn’t exactly familiar enough with this world to speak about it with absolute certainty but that didn’t mean he couldn’t try and comfort his boyfriend in his time of distress.

“We need to tell Jun,” came Mingyu’s low rumble as he joined the two of them by the wall. “And Jihoon and Soonyoung. Fuck, if we’re all going to die then we might as well tell everybody.”

Jeonghan’s eyes rallied between the two of them, still in the process of drying up after his brief bout of crying at the sight of Joshua’s pain, and he could see the frustration, the anger and the dread dripping from their expressions.

He thought he understood.

Joshua had talked. Joshua had broken under torture and had distributed all the information he had among their enemies. Joshua might have singlehandedly brought down their entire organisation.

“This shouldn’t have happened,” Seungcheol growled. “This never should have been allowed to happen. We’ll have to relocate. Soonyoung’s going to have to create new identities. Jihoon will need to destroy all his servers. I don’t fucking believe this …”

Jeonghan didn’t either. They were going to have to move? And change their names? Was Joshua’s blunder really that serious? How many people knew about them now? Would they track them down? Was Seungcheol now the most wanted man in the country?

“This never should have fucking happened!”

Joshua whimpered at the rise in his leader’s voice and Seungcheol’s expression melted into one of guilt while Mingyu’s only twisted further into one of fury, this time directed at his boss.

“What good is saying that now?” he hissed angrily, keeping his voice low and quiet so as not to upset Joshua any further. 

“The damage is done and this is how you’re going to handle it? By cursing your best friend for cracking under the most brutal torture I’ve ever seen? And that’s fucking saying something, Cheol! You know what they did to him! They knew his triggers! What we can see is only half of it!”

Jeonghan didn’t know what that meant exactly but he saw the way Seungcheol’s glare softened slightly in the wake of Mingyu’s swipe.

“I’m not saying that,” he countered, but his voice was still shaking with poorly-concealed rage. “I’m saying he never should have undergone that torture in the first place and then he never would have spilled.”

Mingyu looked like he was going to punch him and although Jeonghan was fairly confident that he would never beat the boy in any kind of physical altercation, he still curled his fingers in the back of his jacket, just to be on the safe side.

“So, what are you suggesting?” Mingyu whispered, practically trembling with a fury that didn’t seem to faze Seungcheol in the slightest. “That it’s his fault? That he was weak? That he should have been trained for this? Trained like I was? Tortured every single fucking day, over and over and over again, until my boss could be sure I wouldn’t ever give up information? Is that what you’re gonna start doing now, Cheol?”

“Gyu,” came Minghao’s croak, his pale and sweaty frame stumbling over to grab onto Mingyu’s elbow. “Gyu, stop. Calm down.”

Jeonghan was on the verge of ordering the boy back to bed when Mingyu’s posture suddenly deflated, his fists uncurling at his sides and his jaw going lax in defeat. Clearly Minghao’s presence had something to do with that.

“I’m sorry,” Mingyu muttered but Seungcheol just shook his head, looking like he really had just received a set of knuckles to the face.

“No, I am,” he mumbled shamefully. “I forgot, Mingyu. I swear, I forgot. And you know that I would never – _never_ – do to any of you what that monster did to you. You know that, right?”

“Yeah … Yeah, I do.”

The slightly awkward and exceedingly strained conversation was brought to an end when Minghao wavered on the spot and Mingyu instantly swept him up into his arms before he could collapse for the second time in as many days.

As he carried him back to his bed, Jeonghan took advantage of the moment of semi-privacy to reverse the roles he and Seungcheol usually took, framing his boyfriend’s face in his hands and leaning in to kiss him.

“It’s okay,” he whispered, pressing their foreheads together. “It’s gonna be okay. We’re gonna sort this out.”

His mind was a mess of a billion different emotions. There was fear at what Joshua’s slip-up meant for him and Seungcheol’s relationship if they really did have to relocate for their own protection. There was worry for Joshua’s recovery process and there was a shaken sense of pity at the newfound knowledge of Mingyu’s past.

He’d known the boy had previously been part of another gang but he’d had no idea that they’d treated him so barbarically.

And then his thought process was completely and utterly obliterated by the singularly most terrifying sentence he’d ever heard.

“Jeonghan, he’s not breathing!”

He’d had a gun to his head. He’d had his life threatened a dozen times. He’d seen his best friend slit a man’s throat right in front of him. He’d willingly marched into the battlefield to trade his life for Joshua’s and yet not a single one of those experiences instilled a fear like this one.

“Fuck, no …”

He lunged forwards, shoving Hansol slightly unceremoniously away from the table and ripping the oxygen mask from Joshua’s face to expose purplish lips, a virtually transparent pallor and closed eyes.

“No, no, no, no …”

The bandages around his patient’s wrists and throat prevented him from finding a pulse so, instead, he dropped his head onto Joshua’s chest, pressing his ear into the protruding ribcage and holding his breath as he listened for a heartbeat.

A heartbeat that wasn’t there.

“Jesus fucking Christ, don’t you dare take this kid from me.”

Hansol was sobbing, Mingyu was restraining Minghao to the bed, Seungcheol had his hands on his head and his eyes glistening and Jeonghan was absolutely terrified that these people were about to witness their friend’s death … again.

“Hansol!” he yelled, climbing onto the table and straddling Joshua’s hips so he was in a better position to perform CPR. “Go find Seokmin! Do it now, Hansol!”

The kid bolted from the room just as Jeonghan wrapped one of his hands around the other, interlocked his fingers and started pounding against Joshua’s chest with all the force he could muster up.

“Get me the defibrillator,” he demanded breathlessly, already starting to tire from the activity.

“We don’t have one.”

Jeonghan’s head snapped up, eyes going wide and mouth hanging open, so shocked that he almost forgot to keep compressing his patient’s already-shattered ribcage into a mush of broken bones and failing lungs.

“You don’t have one?”

How could a place like this not have a defibrillator?

“Fuck, fuck, fuck …” he gasped, reaching the magical number thirty in his head and pausing to check Joshua’s pulse. Still nothing. “FUCK!”

His arms were throbbing, his shoulders were aching and his back felt like it was about to break but he couldn’t stop. He couldn’t lose this boy. Not after everything he’d been through. Not after everything the others had done to get him back.

The door burst open and Hansol threw himself over the threshold, dragging Seokmin by the hand. Jeonghan saw the pharmacist freeze, eyes blowing wide and Adam’s apple bobbing as he swallowed the wad of saliva that had lodged itself in his throat, but he didn’t have time to wait for him.

“Seokmin,” he panted, his hair falling in his eyes. “Get me 1mg of epinephrine, 250ml of saline, a manual resuscitation bag and an 8.5mm intubation tube.”

Despite his obvious distress, Seokmin gave a wide-eyed nod and immediately stumbled over to the medicine cart as Jeonghan gave his head a flick, trying to keep his sweat-soaked hair out of the way.

Hansol was still wailing, tears streaking down his face and hands clapped over his mouth to try and muffle the sounds he would have otherwise been making, and Seungcheol moved over to wrap him in his arms, pulling the kid’s face into his chest so that he wouldn’t have to bear witness to Joshua’s potential demise. 

Seokmin returned with the necessary equipment, a pair of gloves and an elastic band.

“Thanks,” Jeonghan wheezed as the kid scraped his fringe back from his face and twisted his hair into a knot at the back of his head. “You know CPR, right?”

“Yes.”

“Good. Take over.”

They switched flawlessly, Jeonghan vaulting off the table and Seokmin leaping on, leaving the more experienced of the two with the task of administering the epinephrine. 

There was absolutely no chance he was going to be able to access the veins in Joshua’s arms fast enough. It had been difficult enough when they’d first brought him in and he didn’t have the time to faff around with needles right now.

“Cheol!” he called over the sound of Seokmin’s heavy breathing and Joshua’s ribs cracking. “Don’t let Hansol see this!”

Without waiting for a response, hoping that Seungcheol was keeping the kid’s eyes covered, Jeonghan cut a huge slit up Joshua’s pant leg and ripped the fabric open until his knee was exposed.

It was bruised. Horribly so. And Jeonghan was willing to bet that the other one was, too. 

Sanitising the area as quickly as humanly possible, he grabbed the intraosseous drill – because they had one of those but not a defibrillator – turned it on and buried the tip deep into the flesh just below Joshua’s knee cap.

From there, he worked on autopilot, attaching the catheter, flushing it with saline and then administering the epinephrine that needed to restart the boy’s heart if they were going to stand a chance of getting him back.

“Anyone else know CPR?” he shouted, swatting at the sweat on his brow with the back of his hand.

“I do.”

Jeonghan had no idea when Junhui had entered the room but he wasn’t complaining, quickly ordering the new arrival to switch places with Seokmin so he could use the pharmacist’s nursing skills.

They were both exhausted and trying their damn hardest not to completely spiral into a fit of panic. They didn’t have time to break down. They couldn’t afford to break down. Not now.

“Hold his head,” Jeonghan ordered, and Seokmin obediently secured Joshua’s jaw. “Jun, stop for five seconds!”

He needed Joshua’s body to stop jerking with the force of the compressions. Immediately on command, Junhui leaned back, still sitting astride the patient as he raked his hair away from his face and wiped the sweat from his eyes.

Jeonghan took a deep breath, sent a silent prayer up to Heaven and then stuck a tube down Joshua’s throat. 

He couldn’t mess up. He couldn’t mess up. There wasn’t room to mess up here.

“Please … please … please …” he could hear Hansol mumbling into Seungcheol’s chest, and it did nothing for the pressure sitting on his shoulders.

Hands steady despite the stuttering of his breaths, he shoved the thin cylindrical tube past Joshua’s tongue and fed it down his trachea. 

This had to work. This had to work. This had to work or they were done for.

“Seokmin, get me the bag.”

The plastic balloon was instantly in his assistant’s hand and he wasted no time in wrenching the stylet out of the tube, attaching the bag and steadily squeezing it in an even rhythm to forcefully pump oxygen into Joshua’s lungs.

“Seok, push another milligram of epinephrine. Jun, keep going.”

He kept up with the pumping, knowing that he was literally breathing for this boy right now, as Junhui resumed his assault on the kid’s chest and Seokmin fumbled with the catheter in his knee.

“Mingyu!” Jeonghan gasped, throwing his words over his shoulder at where he hoped Mingyu was keeping Minghao calm. “How long since he coded?”

“Seven minutes.”

“Fuck,” Jeonghan cursed under his breath. “Come on, Shua … Come on … Come back … Come back … Jun, stop and check for a pulse.”

Junhui obeyed and there was a momentary stretch of horrifically long silence, broken only by Hansol’s soft whimpers and the gentle whooshing of the manual resuscitator in Jeonghan’s hand. 

And then, “I got one.”

Jeonghan almost choked, “You have?”

“Yeah. It’s thready and kinda weak but it’s there.”

“Okay, get off him!”

Junhui dismounted from the table, giving the entire room a perfectly clear view of the fresh bruises in the centre of Joshua’s chest and the way his stomach was slowly inflating with the breaths Jeonghan was flushing into his body.

They had him back, he told himself. They had him back. He’d brought him back. He’d done it. It was okay. They had him back. They’d brought him back.

“Seokmin …”

“Yeah?”

“Take over from me.”

“What? But …”

“Take over from me right now!”

Seokmin stumbled over and took hold of the bag, keeping up the slow palpitating rhythm Jeonghan had started, and leaving the doctor free to stagger over to the sink by the wall and throw up.

He hadn’t thought it was going to work. He’d thought he was going to fail. He’d thought he was going to lose that boy and he’d been pretending that he knew what he was doing when he was probably just as terrified as Hansol.

He’d almost lost that boy. Again.

A hand came from nowhere, rubbing soothing circles between his shoulder blades as he retched and choked, the limited contents of his stomach splattering repulsively in the bottom of the basin.

“You’re amazing,” came Seungcheol’s watery whisper in his ear, and Jeonghan realised he was crying. “You’re so amazing. You’re a miracle worker. Thank you. Thank you so much.”

Jeonghan’s adrenaline ran out right there on the spot, his knees giving out and his body sagging against Seungcheol’s. 

The leader caught him with ease and the both of them sank carefully to the floor, Seungcheol’s fingers combing aside the sweat-slicked strands of hair that had escaped the clumsy knot.

“Thank you …” he kept repeating as Jeonghan’s world started to fade. “Thank you for saving him … Thank you for parking your car in the street that day … Thank you for dropping out of the sky and landing in my life … Thank you ..."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I told you it wasn't


	26. Horizontal Tango

Jeonghan couldn’t allow himself to have another rupture in professionalism after Seungcheol helped him to his feet and wiped his mouth of any excess vomit. Just because they had Joshua’s heartbeat back did not mean they were out of the woods.

Since they didn’t have a respirator, someone had to remain at the patient’s head, slowly squeezing the bag in regular intervals to ensure a steady course of oxygen was flowing through his lungs. If they stopped, he would die.

But even if they didn’t, he could still die. There was no way of knowing what had caused the cardiac arrest without a whole host of scans and tests and therefore it had every possibility of happening again.

That was why Jeonghan was so unbelievably thankful when the door opened and the man Seungcheol had introduced as ‘Jin’ walked into the room.

He was the Mins’ personal physician and already a skilled surgeon despite his youthful appearance. Suga had sent him in response to Seungcheol’s desperate call for help and, although Jeonghan didn’t want to let Joshua out of his sight, he understood that his abilities were stretched too thin.

Seungkwan was the one working the manual respirator and Hansol was still refusing to let go of his friend’s hand as the newcomer carefully examined the patient who shouldn’t even still be alive at this point.

“You did this?” he asked as he looked over the catheter in Joshua’s knee with a raised eyebrow and Jeonghan nodded, Seungcheol giving his hand a gentle squeeze in response. “And you resuscitated him without a defibrillator?”

Jeonghan just nodded again. He was too tired to do much else.

Jin hummed, an amused sort of smirk stretching his lips as he lifted each of Joshua’s eyelids in turn and shone a light into them, “You’re a good doctor. You’d make an excellent trauma surgeon.”

If Jeonghan wasn’t on the verge of falling over, he would have stumbled into a bow of gratitude.

Back at the hospital, his superiors were forever calling him ‘the one with the long hair’ or ‘the one with the pretty face’, passing him over in favour of asking his fellow students the answers to the questions he knew just because he didn’t fit the criteria of what they wanted a doctor to look like.

Never once had he received a compliment as sincere as this.

“You said he was captured and tortured, right?”

“Right,” Junhui said from where he was watching on the side lines, his arms folded over his chest and his jaw set in worry. “For six days.”

Jin let out a long, low whistle, “He give anything up?”

Jeonghan felt his insides shrivelling and his tongue curling to the back of his mouth at the reminder of how much pain Joshua must have been in to betray his team.

“Yeah,” Seungcheol confirmed solemnly, tightening his grip on Jeonghan’s fingers and raking his free hand through his hair. “He did.”

There was no further conversation on the matter and, secretly, everybody in the room was probably very thankful for that. It wasn’t a pleasant recollection, Joshua gasping for breath and choking on his own blood and spit as he apologised until his heart literally gave out.

“Alright,” Jin sighed, looping his stethoscope back around his neck to conclude his examination. “I can take him back to the base and run a few chest X-Rays but I’m pretty sure he’s going to need surgery and a shit-load of antibiotics. I can’t make any promises but if he’s still kicking after going through all of this then he sure is a tough son of a bitch. He’ll fight.”

“Thank you,” Seungcheol breathed, his fingers slipping from Jeonghan’s as he stepped forward and extended his hand for Jin to take. “We owe you so much.”

Jeonghan was too numb after that to do anything but watch as Mingyu and Junhui slipped their arms beneath Joshua’s body and ever so carefully transferred him from the table to the gurney that Jin had brought with him.

They laid a blanket over his chest, finally covering up the bruises, the broken ribs and the cigarette burns and then they were taking him away, Seungkwan still pumping the bag and Hansol still clutching his hand as Mingyu and Jin walked with them to the van that was waiting in the road outside.

It was only once they were gone that Jeonghan allowed himself to lapse.

The room looked so wrong without Joshua in it. The table was still stained with his blood, there were soiled bandages and wads of dampened gauze abandoned on the floor, the oxygen mask and its tank were still lying discarded at the side.

It was wrong without Joshua in it and Jeonghan told himself that it was a good thing that Jin had come, that they would take that boy away to a place where he would be far safer and well cared for than he was here, but it was hard.

Hard not to think that Seungcheol hadn’t trusted him enough to continue treating his best friend. Hard not to believe that, had Jeonghan been more attentive, Joshua may not have even lost his heartbeat in the first place.

He needed to do something, busy himself with some sort of task, but with Joshua gone, Minghao fast asleep and Soonyoung’s stitches currently being checked by Seokmin, there was nothing for him to do.

Seungcheol and Junhui were conversing in the corner of the room, their voices low and their expressions solemn, and it didn’t take a genius to figure out that they were discussing the brand-new threat to all of their lives.

It didn’t matter that Sungjong was dead. He still could have passed on the information Joshua had given him to whoever he chose and half this regiment were on the run from their past. If they were caught, everything Seungcheol had done to save them would have been for nothing.

As Jeonghan watched, Junhui puffed out a sharp breath of frustration and ran both his hands back and forth over his scalp until his hair resembled a broken bird’s nest.

He paused, chin dropping to his chest, braced his hands on his hips and took several regulated breaths while Seungcheol stared off into space, lost deep in the thought of what he was going to have to do to keep his guys safe.

And then Junhui did something very unexpected.

He stepped forwards and wrapped Seungcheol in a hug. A long, tight, packed-with-emotion embrace where he buried his face in the crook of his leader’s neck and fisted his hands in the back of his shirt.

“You’re a good man,” Jeonghan heard him murmuring. “None of these people would be alive without you.”

When he finally drew back, Seungcheol was wearing an expression of stunned disbelief, his arms still half raised after Junhui had stepped out of them, and before anybody could say anything else, the most peculiar human being Jeonghan had ever met turned to face him.

“You turned out good, Han,” he declared, patting the bewildered doctor on the shoulder. “You survived.”

He left the room without another word, leaving a thoroughly confused audience behind him.

“He’s a nutcase,” Seungcheol chuckled, smirking as he shook his head. “I will never understand him. Never.”

There was a stretch of silence, only within which did Jeonghan realise that both Seokmin and Soonyoung had left the room, and his gaze connected with his boyfriend’s from either side of the bloodied surgical table.

“Come on,” Seungcheol beckoned, holding out his hand. “Let’s get out of here.”

Jeonghan couldn’t have grabbed it fast enough, following Seungcheol’s powerful strides in silence as he was led through the winding maze of corridors and straight out through the back door into the yard.

It was snowing.

Gigantic flakes of crystallised dewdrops floated gracefully from the impenetrable wall of solid white cloud that stretched across the expanse of the sky, twisting and tumbling until their journey came to an end in the drifts that swallowed Jeonghan’s feet up to the ankles.

The air was mind-numbingly beautiful, freezing his thoughts and forming an unbreakable barrier of ice between him and the horrors he’d been through. He turned his face upwards and felt the flakes dust his cheeks, melt on his skin and catch in his eyelashes.

Seungcheol’s fingers picked at the tangled knot Seokmin had tied at the back of his head and his hair tumbled from its clumsy ball, framing his face with gently curled ringlets that were instantly embellished and decorated with snow. 

“Are you cold?” Seungcheol whispered, looping his arms around Jeonghan’s waist from behind and resting his chin on his shoulder.

“No.”

And it was the truth. It wasn’t possible to feel anything but warmth when Seungcheol’s chest was pressed up against his back, breath in his ear, fingers interlocked over his stomach as the snow fell all around them.

“You want me to let go then?”

“Absolutely not.”

Seungcheol smiled into his shoulder, lips pressing soft kisses into the side of his neck, and Jeonghan rested his hands on the belt his boyfriend’s arms had formed around his middle, entangling their fingers and closing his eyes.

He felt so safe. So unbelievably safe and so unbelievably warm and it didn’t matter that everything was about to fall apart because, right here, right now, he was unbelievably safe and unbelievably warm and unbelievably in love with Choi Seungcheol.

"You're shaking, baby," Seungcheol chuckled.

"Okay, maybe it's a little cold," Jeonghan reluctantly admitted, but he didn’t want this to end. 

This moment, wrapped up here with Seungcheol’s scent engulfing him, felt too good to pull away from, even if his brief bout of hypothermia had made him a little more susceptible to the cold than was healthy. 

"Come on, then, let's get you warm." 

Seungcheol linked their fingers and tugged jeonghan along to his room where he flicked on his table lamp instead of the overhead lights, bathing the room in a soft yellow glow. 

"Go on and have a wash. I'll be here when you come back." 

Seungcheol pressed a kiss to Jeonghan’s forehead and gave him a little push in the direction of the shower with a playful smirk ghosting his lips. 

Jeonghan caught sight of his reflection in the mirror over the sink and couldn't help the giddy smile that broke across his face. His cheeks, neck and chest were all a rosy red from blushing so hard and his facial muscles hurt from smiling. 

He wasted no more time hopping into the shower to wash his hair and scrub his skin free of the blood and the lingering smell of the stifled air in the medbay. He brushed his teeth, ran his fingers through the wavy mass on his head before wrapping himself in a towel and emerging from the steam of the bathroom. 

Seungcheol was hunched over his phone, frowning at whatever was on the screen.

"What is it?" Jeonghan asked, sliding around to sit next to him on the bed. 

Seungcheol just shook his head in response, "Nothing, baby. Just trying to get onto Jun. He won't answer." 

Of course he wouldn’t. He had a habit of doing that.

"You know how he can be," Jeonghan shrugged, raking his sodden hair back from his face.

Seungcheol looked up at him and smirked, "Hannie, are you trying to seduce me?" 

"I -- What? No … Why -- Why would I --" 

He broke off from his flustered stutter when he realised his boyfriend was laughing at him. 

“Relax, baby. Did you want something to wear?”

Jeonghan looked down at himself. He really should get dressed but he was suddenly well too aware of how bare his skin was and how warm Seungcheol’s body felt pressed up against his side. How very alone they were, how soft the bed was ... 

Seungcheol must have noticed the change in him because his eyes suddenly darkened and he leant forwards to capture Jeonghan’s mouth in a bruising kiss. 

His hands were locked in the doctor’s hair and he grunted out a low sound in the back of his throat. Something primal and raw. It made Jeonghan’s stomach flip. 

Seungcheol crawled on top of him, forcing his body back onto the mattress, spread out and covered only in a thin white towel that was quickly tenting with his excitement. 

He’d never been touched like this. Never felt like this. He had no idea what was supposed to come next. Was he the batsman? Was he the catcher? 

All thoughts fled from his mind as Seungcheol’s lips began to wander over his neck and his collarbones and his chest, lower and lower until they met the towel at his hips.

"Hannie… Baby," Seungcheol whispered, and Jeonghan looked down to see him positioned snuggly between his thighs, hands on his baby’s hips as he played with the knot of his towel. "Look at me, baby … We can stop if you need to, baby. We can stop."

Jeonghan considered it. He considered stopping. Considered leaving that part of himself unexplored, untouched, but this was Choi Seungcheol.

The first and only man he'd ever honestly loved and maybe he was stupid, maybe it was too soon, maybe he was too young but he'd lost so much, given so much, he'd lived so much and all of it - every last second - was with this man before him. This man who was treating him with so much care. 

And then Jeonghan thought to himself … Why not? 

It felt significant. It felt like something he had to do. It felt like, if he didn't do this right now, he'd never be able to do it again. So he answered. 

"Don't stop … Please don't stop." 

**\-----------------------------**

Out of curiosity Jeonghan had once read an erotica about a homosexual couple. The book didn't describe the preparation or the feeling afterwards it only describes the pleasure, the feeling of being full and warm then they wake up ‘ _deliciously sore’_ and go about their days. 

There was nothing _delicious_ about rectal soreness but Jeonghan gets it. He feels good. He feels different.

He's finally shook the final barrier between himself and his self-discovery. 

Seungcheol is sleeping soundly next to him covered only by the sheets and Jeonghan’s own body. The soothing sound of his heartbeat under Jeonghan’s ear is musical.

The growling of his stomach; not so much. 

Jeonghan chuckles lightly and pushes himself up stretching out his

sore limbs. He swings his legs over the side of the bed and instantly clocks

the circular purple and red marks on his thighs. 

Grinning like a mad man he stands to pull on some clothes and ventures out to find breakfast.

“…And don’t think I won’t still kick your ass.”

“I’d love to see you try.”

“Ditch the oxygen tank then.”

“That is the only way you could possibly win.”

“Can someone just make my fucking coffee so I can go back to work?”

Jeonghan shouldered open the kitchen door, already knowing who he was going to see on the other side: Minghao perched on the counter with a nasal cannula threaded beneath his nose and Mingyu menacingly shaking a spatula in his direction.

Jihoon was at the table, his face buried in his laptop, still grumbling something about coffee under his breath as his fingers attacked the keyboard with his usual ferocity.

It was as if the world had been reset and, even though they were going to have to pack their bags sooner rather than later and relocate their entire lives, at least they all had each other. Joshua would be there, Seungcheol would be there and Jeonghan would have finally – _finally_ – found somewhere he could call home.

“Minghao, no fighting until you’ve fully healed,” he chastised upon entry. “Mingyu, please get Mr Grump, over here, his coffee and point me in the direction of breakfast.”

Mingyu let out an exasperated sigh but the happy smile remained on his face as he set the coffee cup down in front of Jihoon, handed Minghao a mug of tea and then reeled Jeonghan over to help him finish dishing out rice and stew for the rest of the regiment.

One by one, sleep-rumpled boys lugged their exhausted bodies into the kitchen to collect their early morning beverages.

Seungkwan and Soonyoung still hadn’t returned to their respective residences. Wonwoo, Seokmin and Hansol had helped Jin safely transport Joshua to the Mins’ private medical centre and were now back, and as soon as Chan stumbled into the room, he dropped himself into Wonwoo’s lap and rubbed his face in the older boy’s chest.

Seungcheol was the last to arrive, strolling leisurely through the door and immediately bringing his lips to Jeonghan’s.

“Oh, God! It’s too early!” Chan complained with a dramatic sigh, covering his eyes.

“Channie, be thankful,” Wonwoo hummed in between mouthfuls of toast. “Some kids come from broken homes. You’re lucky your parents are still so madly in love.”

He was joking. Jeonghan didn’t think he’d ever heard Wonwoo joke before. He was surprisingly witty for somebody whose confidence was mainly quarantined to his fists.

“Jeonghan’s not my mom!” Chan screamed, giving his best rendition of a petulant child.

Nobody addressed the fact that he hadn’t denied Seungcheol as his father and, to be honest, the kid probably thought of his leader as the closest thing he was ever going to get to a parental figure.

Seungcheol gave a hearty chuckle, sitting down on one of the island stools and holding his arms out for Jeonghan who happily slotted himself between them, nuzzling into his boyfriend’s fluffy mop of hair.

“Anyone seen Junhui this morning?” Seungcheol addressed the room. “We have to get Charles back on the street.”

The only response he received were noncommittal shrugs, a few hums of ‘I don’t know’ and a couple of ‘he’ll turn up’s, but Jeonghan couldn’t deny the steady feeling of unease blossoming in the pit of his stomach. 

His grandmother had owned a gift of foresight, not dissimilar to Junhui’s own notorious intuition. She knew things she shouldn’t, did things seemingly for reason and was often perfectly aware of where all her charges were and if they were in any trouble.

She had described the feeling to him once.

“Sometimes, you just know, Hannie … Sometimes, your gut just whispers something to you and it’s your job to listen.”

And that was exactly what Jeonghan was experiencing right now: a small voice in the back of his head telling him that Junhui was not there. That he was no longer with them. That his presence had left the base.

But he didn’t voice his thoughts. Junhui was fine. He was more than capable of taking care of himself. Jeonghan was just being paranoid.

“Channie, why don’t you go see if you can track him down?” Seungcheol suggested, and Chan hopped obediently off Wonwoo’s lap to follow his instructions.

Breakfast resumed but Jeonghan still couldn’t shake that feeling. 

It was only a few minutes later when Chan returned with a slight pout and an indifferent shrug of his shoulders.

“He must be at the chop shop,” he dismissed, clambering onto one of the kitchen stools and pulling his cereal bowl to the edge of the counter so he could reach it.

Jeonghan could feel his muscles tense with a cocktail of unnamed emotions, all of which he’d felt before and recently, too. He’d felt it when Hansol was burnt, when Hyuk was cornered between those cars, when Joshua was taken, when Seungcheol had gone out to find him and again now.

It was a swirling whirlwind of fear, dread, confusion and anxiety bubbling together into one deathly concoction and he was trying to listen to that little voice in his head but part of it seemed to be telling him to be quiet.

The other part was telling him that Junhui needed time.

Time for what Jeonghan didn’t quite know.

The day was fairly calm and he spent most of it chatting with Seokmin and Minghao as the others returned to their daily duties and routines.

Seungcheol had started calling in favours from real estate places in search of a new location. He may have been born the son of a mafia family that ran a series of very illegal operations but it turned out that he also had a great sense of business. 

The land and the base both officially belonged to him and, therefore, he could put them up on the market and look for a new one. A safe one that they could move to in their escape from whoever had their personal information.

He also owned Seungkwan’s club and the little homeless shelter that Soonyoung operated out of. All the money they made from drug deals was filtered through the books at the club and then Seungkwan, along with Jihoon, made sure that it seemed legitimate enough to register with a bank account.

Seungcheol had his eyes set on something a bit larger, somewhere on the outskirts of Seoul, and Jeonghan hadn’t yet seen it – nor did he know where it was – but he couldn’t help but feel the excitement building inside him.

He would need to find a way to access his savings without being caught by the police but he was fairly certain that Jihoon could do something like that in his sleep. With the money, Jeonghan would probably buy into the operation, maybe purchase a couple of shares in the chop shop or even start a small cartel of his own.

He could ask Seungcheol to set him up with Charles or maybe he was better suited to run accounts and manage the club alongside Seungkwan.

The possibilities were endless.

Maybe he could even get a few dogs. He’d have to ask Seungcheol what the yard space would be like. Maybe the two of them could go out and find more lost and broken boys to save and call their own.

Jeonghan knew he was getting slightly too far ahead of himself but he also knew with absolute certainty that he had never been this happy. He’d never had a place to belong and then here it was, just tossed into his lap.

He lost Hyuk, and it still burned, but here he had Junhui and Joshua, Mingyu and Minghao. He could even consider Jihoon a friend.

Mingyu dropped by with lunch at around midday, a turn of events that struck Jeonghan as odd since it was usually Junhui’s job to distribute meals to those who couldn’t get them themselves, but he said nothing as he accepted the offering with a grateful smile.

Seungcheol still wasn’t back by the time the sun set so he returned to his room to freshen up and that was when his greatest fear was realised.

His door was slightly open, rekindling the fuzzy feeling of unease in the pit of his stomach, and as soon as he tentatively crossed the threshold, he found the note left on his pillow.

Breath stuttering in his throat, heart thudding at the back of his mouth, hands trembling ever so slightly, he picked it up and unfolded it to read the message that had clearly been scribbled down in a great hurry.

_Thanks for the head start, Hannie. I know you knew I wasn’t there since I’m always the first person you see in the morning. If you want, you can raise the alarm now. Trust me, I’m long gone._

_It’s for the best. Now that my name is out there, they’ll come looking for me. And if they know I was ever associated with any of you then it will be ten times worse than anything Wonwoo’s thugs or Jihoon’s loan shark could ever do. They’ll hurt you. All of you. And I can’t allow that._

_I need you to destroy this letter as soon as you’ve read it. Don’t show it to Cheol. Just say that I left to keep the rest of you safe. And never tell Shua. He’ll blame himself but it wasn’t his fault. I know how easy it is to break when you’re in that kind of pain._

_Thanks for being you, Hannie. I hope we find each other in the next life._

_Yours,_

_Jun_

There were tears in Jeonghan’s eyes before he’d even reached the bottom of the page and he knew – he _knew_ – why Junhui had run but he still wished he’d stayed. Just for a little longer. Even if it was just to say a proper goodbye.

And suddenly, the reality of the situation Jeonghan had been dreaming about all day slammed into him with the force of a speeding train.

They were all in danger. They weren’t moving so that he could domesticate a gang of criminals. They were moving because there was a very real and very serious threat to each and every one of their lives.

Joshua wasn’t on vacation. He was fighting for his life, watched over by a doctor who worked for the very people who’d been trying to murder Seungcheol. Wonwoo and Mingyu weren’t just hiding from people who scared them. They were hiding from people who could very well find and kill them. Slowly and painfully.

This wasn’t a fantasy life. This was Jeonghan’s current reality and it had taken Junhui leaving for that realisation to finally kick in.

He was angry.

Angry that Junhui wouldn’t stay and help them. Seungcheol himself had said that that boy was better at disappearing than all of them combined and yet he’d left them behind to fend for themselves. 

But, at the same time, it was clear that he’d only been trying to protect them. 

Jeonghan stumbled from the room and down the stairs, his breath hitching as he tried and failed to stem the steady flow of salted pearls from his eyelids.

Just the thought of never seeing Junhui’s smile again, never hearing him laugh again, never listening to one of his quirky little stories ever again, shredded his insides into ribbons of mutilated flesh.

He hurt almost as much as losing Hyuk. And Hyuk was dead. Now Junhui might as well be dead, too.

It was Soonyoung who found him first. His mind was still completely rattled but he still possessed the mental capacity to crumple the note in his fist and shove it into his back pocket.

“What is it?” Soonyoung asked, already on the highest alert.

His hands were running up and down Jeonghan’s arms, trying to both comfort him and search for any injuries at the same time. Maybe if he looked a little harder, he would be able to see the hole in Jeonghan’s heart.

“I … It’s Jun … Jun … he’s gone.”

“Gone?” Soonyoung croaked incredulously. “How, Hannie?”

Jeonghan didn’t know how to respond. Junhui had asked him not to tell the truth but now he would have to think up a cover story as to why he knew that their friend had vanished while nobody else had a clue.

“Jeonghan, gone how?” Soonyoung shouted in his face, gripping both the doctor’s shoulders and shaking violently.

He was scared. Jeonghan’s words were easy to misinterpret and only now did he truly understand that it may have sounded like he’d just reported Junhui’s death but, even then, he couldn’t make his brain send the correct message to his lips.

Because it truly did feel like Junhui was dead. 

By now, Mingyu, Seungkwan and Wonwoo had been alerted to the commotion, all trying to shout over each other in their desperate search for answers, but the only thing Jeonghan seemed capable of doing was tightening his fingers around the ball of paper in his pocket.

His last link to Junhui.

“Baby, what is it?”

Seungcheol’s voice. Seungcheol had come back.

He and Hansol were rounding the corner, coming full speed towards the little congregation that now gathered around Jeonghan’s huddled figure on the floor. He didn’t even remember sitting down.

“Hannie, baby … What’s wrong?”

Seungcheol’s warm hands were on his face and, under any other circumstances, that would have made everything okay but nothing was okay now. Nothing felt right. Nothing felt like it was ever going to be right again because if their bravest soldier had jumped ship, what hope was there for the rest of them?

“Jun’s gone.”


	27. Trafficking Medicine

Jeonghan knew he didn’t deserve to react the way he was reacting. He’d known Junhui for a month, no more, no less, when the others had been fighting by his side for several years. They were the ones who had the right to be upset, not him.

And yet he was.

He couldn’t exactly put the feeling into words but some part of him had seen Junhui as something other than the ruthless and occasionally creepy exterior that encased that boy. Some part of him had seen the little kid beneath the battle scars.

There was just something about Junhui that gave off the aura of a child who’d never had the chance to grow up properly. Of a baby that had been taught from birth not to cry or else it would have its neck wrung.

Junhui tried so hard to conceal the pain that festered in the back of his mind and yet Jeonghan had trained himself to spot the hitches in body language and the expressions in the eyes that indicated everything was not as it seemed.

And that scar on his abdomen. Only the darkest depths of his imagination could even begin to fathom who or what had caused that and why.

Junhui’s letter had been cryptic and non-specific but now Jeonghan held the vaguest understanding of what had gone on in that boy’s life to turn him into the bloodthirsty warrior he’d become.

_They’ll come looking for me._

He was running. He probably had been his entire life. There were people – people who had most likely been the ones to hold him down and cut him open while he watched – willing to track him down and finish whatever twisted act of sadism they’d started.

Jeonghan couldn’t imagine a life like that. Living in a constant state of terror, always looking over your shoulder, waiting for the hands that would shoot out of the darkness and take you back there.

He wished he’d had longer with Junhui. Maybe then he could have unravelled a few of those knots. Maybe then he could have convinced the boy that he didn’t have to run anymore so long as he was with them.

But the kind of damage those people – whoever they were – had inflicted on that child’s mind was the kind that would never fade. And suddenly it struck Jeonghan that, amid all the lies and the grossly unbelievable stories, there may have been a hint of truth.

Junhui had been strapped down and tortured, just like he’d said. Junhui may well have had to survive on his own in the woods or on the streets, just like he’d said. And Junhui had most definitely, undeniably, irrevocably, been abused.

Just like he’d said.

Maybe he’d been trying to tell the truth this whole time and they just hadn’t been listening closely enough to put the pieces together.

“Baby?”

Jeonghan flinched, having delved too deep into his own subconscious to hear Seungcheol coming up behind him.

“Sorry,” came the soft murmur in his ear as arms wrapped themselves around his waist. “I didn’t mean to scare you.”

He sounded tired. Grief-stricken, even. And once again, Jeonghan was reminded that the loss of Junhui was far worse for the people who’d known him all this time than it was for him.

“Did Jihoon find anything?” he whispered without moving his eyes from the sun’s slow descent beneath the horizon through the window. “Did he leave any traces? Anything that might tell us where he went?”

He could feel Seungcheol shaking his head before the mafia boss’ chin came to rest on his shoulder, breath ghosting against the side of his neck.

“If he doesn’t want to be found then there’s no chance. He’s gone.”

The sky was streaked with chalky smudges in a variation of shades ranging from a deep rich blue to a vibrant fiery orange and Jeonghan found himself marvelling at just how many colours could come together under one galaxy, paint such an ornate masterpiece and then vanish as if they had never even existed at all.

“Do you think he’ll be okay?”

“I have no idea,” Seungcheol answered truthfully. “But he can take care of himself. He’s smart. And strong. He’ll find some place safe. He might even join another gang.”

Jeonghan hadn’t even thought of that.

He’d known that Junhui had quite literally come from nowhere. That he’d just fallen out of the sky and landed in their laps one day and that had been the start of his story. It was almost painful to imagine him slipping into another group of people’s lives as though he hadn’t formed a family here.

But so long as he was safe and as far away from those monsters who’d hurt him as possible, Jeonghan didn’t care where he was.

“Did you find a place to go?” he inquired weakly, feeling something inside of him just deflate as the sun disappeared behind the buildings. “For all of us to go?”

Maybe he imagined it. Maybe he was still reeling from the guilt of not stopping Junhui from leaving, but he could have sworn he heard a slight hitch in Seungcheol’s breathing and a crack in his voice as he replied.

“Yeah. I found somewhere.”

“Good … That’s good …”

The sunset was over. The colours would dissipate in a few moments. The darkness would come. Just like it always did.

“Come sit with me,” Seungcheol murmured, slipping his hand into Jeonghan’s and gently leading him over to the bed so they could perch side by side, fingers still interlocked.

They should be packing. Not that Jeonghan had a lot of belongings since everything he currently owned had been bought for him after his abduction.

Hmm … Abduction. It was funny to think about it now. That abduction had probably been the best thing that had ever happened to him. He’d met the people he could finally call family. He’d met the person he could finally call ‘baby’.

“You should drink something,” Seungcheol coaxed, pulling a flask from his pocket and flicking the cap open. “I haven’t seen you swallow a single thing all day.”

He was right. Jeonghan had been too busy feeling sorry for himself to bother taking care of his blood sugar and only now that his boyfriend had brought it up did he feel the sandpapery texture of his tongue and the sandy sensation at the back of his throat.

“What is it?” he asked as he took the flask, the metal feeling cool against his fingers. “Alcohol?”

The faintest smile stretched Seungcheol’s lips. Fond and tired and blissful and yet sad all at the same time.

“Can you blame me?” he smirked, and Jeonghan shook his head as he raised the bottle to his mouth. 

It had been a long day. It had been a long week. If they didn’t deserve to knock back a few glasses of Soju then what was the fucking point of it all?

He took a long, long swig, relishing in the gentle burning of his taste buds as the alcohol slithered down his gullet. It had a sweet kind of kick to it that left a warm, fuzzy feeling blossoming in his stomach and a soft buzz to the tips of his fingers.

“Han …” Seungcheol choked, clearing his throat before he continued. “You know that I love you, right?”

Jeonghan looked up slowly, his brows knitting together and his eyes narrowing slightly as he mumbled his response, “I love you, too.”

“And that I’m never going to love anybody as much as I love you, right?”

Something was wrong. Seungcheol looked like he was on the verge of tears, clinging to Jeonghan’s hand so tightly that it was almost physically hurting him, and staring at him like his world would end if he even so much as blinked.

“You know that, right?”

Jeonghan wished he could order all the emotions that were whirring through his head but it had been such a long day and he was just so tired and he could barely even set the flask down on the bedside table without dropping it.

“I know,” he mumbled, his words sounding foggy even to his own ears as he reached up and cupped Seungcheol’s face in his hands. “And I’m not ever going to love anybody as much as I love you.”

“No,” Seungcheol shook his head, taking hold of Jeonghan’s fingers and pulling them away from his face so he could clutch them in his lap. “I want you to. I want you to find somebody you love just as much as you loved me. More, even.”

Why was he talking in the past tense? ‘Loved’? Jeonghan was still in love with him. Jeonghan didn’t want to find somebody else because Seungcheol was right here and Seungcheol was all he wanted.

“Cheol …” Now even his own voice sounded wrong. “What’s this about? I … Are you … I’m not going anywhere.”

Seungcheol blinked and the first tear dropped gracefully onto his cheekbone, gone almost instantly when he reached up to swipe at it with a trembling finger.

“Yes, you are,” he whispered.

He was? Where was he going? Why wasn’t Seungcheol coming with him? Why couldn’t they go together? They were a package deal now, right? They were in love, right? They were boyfriends, right? Right?

“I …”

His head was full of cotton wool.

“I don’t want to.”

His tongue felt heavy.

“I don’t want to go anywhere.”

Shapes were starting to blur. Seungcheol’s face was starting to blur. Blur so much that Jeonghan barely even noticed him leaning in until there were lips on his and then he couldn’t even bring himself to react before Seungcheol’s arms were around him.

He felt warm. And fuzzy. And … weird. Like he could just sink further and further and further into Seungcheol’s embrace until he disappeared forever.

“I don’t want you to, either,” came the suppressed sob against his hair. “I want you to stay more than I’ve ever wanted anything in my life but I can’t keep you safe. I can’t protect you.”

It clicked. Excruciatingly slowly. Like he was made of treacle. But it finally clicked.

“No,” he slurred, pulling away and shaking his head. “Please … Cheol, please … I want to stay with you. I want to stay. You … You can’t send me back there …”

“I have to, baby …”

“No!”

He scrambled up off the bed, his entire world tilting dangerously to the side and sending him staggering into the wall, furiously trying to blink the dizziness away. Seungcheol’s figure was swimming in front of him, hands outstretched, but Jeonghan stumbled out of reach.

“Please!” he begged, still clinging to the wall behind him for support as tears started to flow down his cheeks. “I … I have nothing … There’s nothing waiting for me … I … I’m no one … Please don’t send me back there … Cheol, please … I need you … I … I need to be with you …”

He had to tell him. He had to make him understand that there was literally nothing for him back home. No, not home. This was his home. The life he’d lived before was gone.

His apartment had burned down. His parents were two ice-cold sociopaths. Hyuk was dead. The rest of the world thought he was, too. They would have already replaced him at the hospital.

There was nothing to go back to.

“Han, baby …” Seungcheol pleaded, and even though his universe was fading in and out of focus, Jeonghan could see that he was crying, too. “Please sit down. You’re … You’re going to fall.”

Ignoring his words, Jeonghan lurched forwards and threw himself against his boyfriend’s chest, pressing his cheek against his shoulder and clamping his arms around his neck just to keep himself from toppling over.

“Please …” he whimpered. “I love you … I … I love you … Please don’t make me go back there … I love you so much … I need you … I … I need to stay with you …”

Everything was dissolving. Everything was disappearing. He could feel the darkness crawling in at the corners of his vision and the only thing that existed and that was solid and that was safe was Seungcheol’s chest and Seungcheol’s arms and Seungcheol’s lips in his hair.

“Please … Please let me stay with you …”

He could feel his knees bending, could feel Seungcheol taking his weight and ever so gently guiding him down to the floor and Jeonghan clung to him, sobbing, begging, pleading as fingers carded through his hair and arms gently rocked him back and forth.

“Please … Please … I need you …”

“You don’t need me,” Seungcheol whispered back. “You’re strong. You’re smart. You’re incredible. You’ve never needed anybody. You heard what Jin said. You’re good. You’re going to go back home, you’re going to reenrol as a med student and you’re going to become a trauma surgeon. You’re going to find a new boyfriend, you’re going to get married and you’re going to be brilliant. And … And one day … You’ll wake up … And you’ll remember me for what I am: the poison that almost took your life away.”

Jeonghan couldn’t even speak anymore.

His grip was growing lax, arms sliding from Seungcheol’s shoulders to flop uselessly at his sides, neck bending itself over his boyfriend – _boyfriend’s?_ – arm as all his muscles turned to jelly.

Their eyes locked, two pairs of tear-stained orbs meeting one another. Jeonghan could barely feel the hand that rested against his cheek, thumb stroking backwards and forwards, but he could see the smile.

“I’m poison, baby. And being as far away from me as possible is your medicine.”

Jeonghan closed his eyes.

\------------------

Seungcheol had no idea how long he knelt there, cradling Jeonghan’s unconscious body against his chest, but eventually, once the tears had dried up and the devastation was at its highest, the door opened and Mingyu stepped into the room.

“It’s done?” he asked softly, heartbroken eyes raking over the sight of his leader on the floor.

“It’s done,” Seungcheol nodded, words slightly muffled against Jeonghan’s hair. “Can you thank Seokmin for getting me the sedatives, please?”

He hadn’t wanted to do this. He hadn’t wanted to do this. But Junhui had been right. They were all in danger now and Jeonghan could still go back. Jeonghan could still be safe. Could still live a normal life.

It was too late for the rest of them. They were in too deep. They were all either wanted by the police, being hunted down, or truly didn’t have a scrap with which to hold their lives together without this team.

Jeonghan could still go back. Before it was too late. And Seungcheol would be damned forever if he took that boy with him, kept him selfishly by his side, and then watched him take a bullet to the head or a blade to the heart later down the line.

He should have known. This was never going to work. They were never going to work.

“I’m so sorry, Cheol.”

But, fuck, was he glad that they’d tried.

“Do you need help with him?” Mingyu queried, taking a tentative step forward.

Seungcheol just shook his head, “I got him.”

He pressed one last kiss into Jeonghan’s scalp, slipped his free arm beneath his baby’s knees and lifted him effortlessly from the floor, trying not to think about the way his head was hanging lifelessly over the crook of his elbow.

He hadn’t wanted to do this.

“Let’s go.”

\--------------------

He remembered always feeling incredibly disorientated whenever he awoke somewhere that wasn’t his bed. 

On nights when his shifts stretched incredibly long, he’d sometimes find an empty room in a desperate attempt to get a few minutes’ sleep and he never failed to wake up just a little confused as to where he was and which way was up but the feeling always dissipated after a few seconds. 

There had also been a few occasions when he’d passed out on the couch or even the kitchen floor, too tired to make it all the way to his room, but upon waking, it was only a few seconds before he figured out why there wasn’t a pillow beneath his head.

This time, however, that feeling stayed.

His head felt like it had been repeatedly slammed into a wall, his cheek was tight, almost like it was swollen, and he was cold. Very cold. Shivering beneath the rough material that covered him from shoulder to thigh.

He cracked his lids open and propped himself up on his elbows to take in his surroundings. 

The room was dimly lit, bare of any furniture, with dingy walls and a low ceiling. A single bulb hung precariously from its wires over his head, blinking every few seconds just to make sure his migraine wouldn’t stop drilling against his temples.

With a stifled grunt, Jeonghan heaved himself into a sitting position and his stomach instantly rebelled, spewing its contents all over the floor in front of him. 

“Shush!” came an urgent hiss from somewhere to his left.

He hadn’t realised there were other people in this room with him.

Smacking his lips against the sour taste of vomit, he turned his head cautiously to the side and immediately noticed the group of roughly ten young boys huddled together under one blanket against the wall.

The largest of them picked himself up and stepped forwards, stalking slowly in his direction. He seemed relatively at ease despite the obvious predicament they were in and he himself didn’t quite know what that predicament was yet but he knew a predicament when he saw one.

His new acquaintance was tall, slim and hauntingly beautiful with skin the shade of hot chocolate, large eyes the colour of a clear sky and hair as red as leaves in the fall.

Needless to say, what the fuck? 

He glanced back over at the other residents of this prison-cell-like set-up. None of them could be older than twenty and all of them were extremely attractive, ethereal even, despite the dirt, grime and occasional splatter of blood that clung to their skin.

And that’s when it hit him like a bus.

He’d heard about things like this: pretty foreigners being snatched off the streets, forced onto drugs and buried deep in the underworld before they were sold off like cattle, taken as slaves and groomed for whatever sick fantasy their new owners had for them.

They had a name.

This had a name.

Human trafficking.

And now he was a part of it.

Yet this was probably not the worst situation he’d found himself in recently and he almost laughed at how desensitised he’d become to very real and very serious threats. He _did_ laugh at the realisation that he truly wasn’t afraid.

There was a niggling in the back of his mind that tried to alert him to the wrongness of what was happening but he couldn’t focus on it. There really could be worse things and this certainly wasn’t one of them.

“Name,” the red-haired boy demanded in strongly-accented Korean.

“Name,” the addressee echoed back.

He knew he must have one but his head was too cloudy to think of what it might be. Various answers were popping up in his head, a few them sounding familiar but all of them sounding wrong.

Shua? Cheol? Jun? Min?

They were chasing each other in the foreground of his mind and yet none of them felt like they belonged to him.

He shrugged and the boy gave an understanding nod before taking his hand, tugging him up onto his unsteady feet and pulling him away from the puddle of vomit he’d left on the floor.

“Me … Noah … bad Korean,” the kid tried in broken syllables.

There was no way he was Korean. It was surprising he could even speak it at all, but then Hansol hadn’t looked Korean either and he’d been perfectly fluent.

… Who was Hansol?

His head hurt too much to think about it.

Before anything else could confuse him even more, the rusted iron door was kicked open and a man strutted through with a gun carelessly tucked into the waistband of his jeans. The boys instantly tightened their huddle, clinging to each other and avoiding eye contact.

The newcomer’s gun was easily accessible. Anybody could take it from him in three seconds and put a bullet through his head. He could picture the moves in his mind but he didn’t act on them. He wasn’t even sure he could.

There were more men now, some carrying food, others carrying weapons and one of them walked right up to him, crouching down and offering a sad smile.

His face seemed vaguely familiar. Average height, bunny teeth and eyes that slanted upwards at the corners. Like 10:10 on a clock, his mind provided.

Once again, a name floated across his mind but, once again, he didn’t voice it.

The food and water was deposited in front of where he sat, slumped against the wall and leaning heavily against the red-headed boy for support, and then the men were leaving.

Soonyoung …

The pain in his head was back and this time, he couldn’t suppress the groan of discomfort as flashing images accosted his memory, all of them filled with guns and blood and dead bodies. A makeshift clinic of sorts. A few smiling faces. Someone he called ‘baby’.

Baby …

_“Hannie?”_

“Cheol?” he whispers, just to see how it feels on his lips, and it feels right.

Tears began to leak from his eyes but he couldn’t for the life of him figure out why.

He didn’t remember falling asleep but he awoke to the redhead – Noah – shaking him with a sense of urgency in his expression, pulling him up from where he’d crumpled into a ball on the floor and giving him a perfectly clear view of the new man standing in the middle of the room.

He was dressed in a suit and regarding the cluster of terrified boys before him with a kind of assessing interest.

Noah scooted over so that his body acted as a shield, protecting the rest of them from view, but when the man stormed over and plucked one of the boys from the group, there was very little he could do to stop him.

The poor unfortunate soul was dragged from the room and he was once again reminded of the severity of the situation he was in. He needed to pull himself together or he’d be in trouble.

Hours blurred together. Maybe even days.

He kept track of time by counting how often he saw the boy he’d christened 10:10. The guy showed up at around noon every day, sometimes also dropping by closer to evening, seemingly just to check on him.

10:10 was never armed. Almost as if he knew he would be killed if he were.

10:10 doesn’t actually speak to him until the fourth day.

The other boys were asleep, still clutching each other even in unconsciousness. Noah had been taken by one of the suited men just that morning and it seemed to have sent them all spiralling into immeasurable panic.

There were only six of them left now.

“Almost time, Hannie.”

There was that name again.

Hannie.

It sounded like a strange thing to call a person but he supposed it must be his name. His name was Hannie. He wished he could tell Noah.

“You’re scaring me a bit. I don’t know if you’re ignoring me because you’re upset or if whatever Seokmin gave you messed up your brain but …”

Seokmin … He knew Seokmin. 

Fractals of a wide grin burned into the backs of his eyes, followed swiftly by that of a short grumpy man, a thin boy with a katana, a young kid with a cute smile.

Seokmin … Jihoon … Minghao … Chan …

It hurt to think.

He whined.

“Hannie? Jeonghan … Talk to me … Are you okay?”

“Soonyoung?”

“Yeah … fuck … yeah, it’s me.”

His relief was tangible. Apparently, they knew each other. Maybe they were even friends. Why couldn’t he make sense of anything?

It wasn’t that he’d forgotten. It just felt like all the information, all the memories, all the facts he possessed were hidden away somewhere, visible and yet just out of reach.

“It’s almost time, Hannie. Just hold on for one more day, yeah?”

Jeonghan nodded. He could do that. He could hold on for one more day.

Just one more day.

\----------------------

The rusted metal doors banged open and there was a flurry of movement as people came streaming into the room. Jeonghan could hear various clicks of guns being loaded, men screaming in different languages, the boys whimpering in fear. 

An explosion shook the walls, sending plaster dust raining down on top of them, choking them, crawling up their nostrils and down their airways and then there were more men. Men in black.

Police uniforms.

Bulky bulletproof vests.

SWAT rifles.

And, just like that, it was over.

Hands heaved him up off the floor, securing themselves around his upper arm and waist as he was marched from the building and into the waiting ambulance where they ordered him to lie down on the gurney.

He wasn’t hurt. But they wanted him there anyway. So he obeyed.

A police officer appeared at the open doors and beckoned the EMT outside. Jeonghan just watched, head lolling lazily against his pillow, as the two of them conversed in soft undertones before the cop was sitting down at his side.

“Yoon Jeonghan?”

The name felt right so he nodded and the officer reciprocated the gesture with a gentle smile.

“Well, Jeonghan-ssi, your story rocked Seoul to its core. You’ll be a hero.”

A hero.

He didn’t feel like a hero. He felt like he’d lost something. Like he himself was lost. From the moment he woke up locked in that room, he hadn’t felt even the slightest hint of fear, and yet now that he was out and free, the world just seemed so overwhelmingly huge.

The lights flashing from the cop cars were too bright. Too intrusive. The reporters flocking the scene were too loud. Their cameras were blinding him. The shouting of the officers trying to keep them back was too painful.

Jeonghan felt lost. Sad and lost and empty. 

Something was missing.

“Cheol?”

The name tumbled from his lips.

It felt like a prayer.

And it felt right.

“Cheol!” he called, and several of the officers turned towards him. “Cheol! Cheol!”

It felt good to scream his name. It felt liberating to finally get it out of him. That single syllable had been reverberating through his mind, beating against his chest, clinging to the tip of his tongue for so, so long and now he could finally scream it to the world.

“CHEOL!”

He screamed it harder than he thought his neglected vocal cords were capable of and he was crying and shaking and he wanted his baby. He wanted him back.

How could he do this to him? How could he just abandon him? They’d been so happy together. They could have stayed that way. Why couldn’t they have stayed that way?

In love.

Just the two of them.

In love with each other.

Somebody was restraining him, strapping him to the gurney, and he knew that he should stop fighting them but he couldn’t. He clawed and thrashed and screamed until there was the sharp scratch of a needle in the crook of his elbow and the consciousness just seeped out of him.

He never found out that, in an alley nearby, all Seungcheol could do was wrap his arms around himself and clamp his lips shut in order to resist answering those screams.

“I’m here, baby.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Almost there...


	28. One More Step

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> One more to go after this. Thank you, guys, for everything! Remember to stay safe!

“And now onto our next story.

Yoon Jeonghan – the 24-year-old med student from Seoul Private Hospital who was believed dead after his apartment was destroyed by an explosion of indeterminate cause back in January – was rescued from a human trafficking operation just two days ago after police officers received an anonymous tipoff that indicated there may be young people being held against their will.

Jeonghan-ssi’s family held his funeral and grieved his death earlier this year, despite the lack of a body found in the wreckage and the online theories that stated the son of successful lawyers, Yoon Eunho and Yoon Hyejin, possibly could have survived the attack. The claims were sourced from the security footage of a nearby surveillance camera which shows two men pulling an unresponsive body matching Jeonghan-ssi’s description out of the rubble and taking it away in a van.

Police investigated the matter but reported they had no available leads and the case remained open and unsolved until the raid, carried out by a team of SWAT officers on March 9th, uncovered no less than six young men in captivity. Among them: Yoon Jeonghan.

The victims were all immediately transferred to Seoul Private Hospital and are reportedly in a stable, yet profoundly traumatised, condition. Jeonghan-ssi’s parents gave a statement today regarding their son’s prognosis.”

_“It’s … It’s truly a miracle. My wife and I never imagined that we would get the chance to see our only child again. We buried an empty coffin almost four months ago, notified friends and family, began the grieving process … And now, by the grace of God, our son has been returned to our arms.”_

_“My Hannie … My baby … is currently in a very fragile state. His physical injuries will heal with time but we worry for his mental condition and what it will mean for his future. It certainly is heart-breaking, as a mother, to witness your child suffering but I know that, with all the support we have been receiving from loved ones and strangers alike, our Hannie will be able to overcome the dreadful trauma he has suffered at the hands of these people.”_

_“Yes. On behalf of my family, I would like to thank all those who have expressed their concern for Jeonghan’s wellbeing. All three of us are truly grateful. We have a long road ahead of us. Our son will need intensive psychiatric treatment for the foreseeable future but we are confident in his ability. He has already survived the impossible. He will survive this, too. Thank you.”_

“Jeonghan-ssi’s roommate, Kim Donghyuk – also a med student at Seoul Private – was reported missing, too, several days following the explosion that burned an entire building to the ground but was confirmed dead after a body was discovered outside the Ramford Motel –” 

“Can you turn it off?” Jeonghan whispered, rolling his head on the pillow so that he could face the wall instead of the television screen in the corner of the room. “I don’t want to watch it anymore.”

He hadn’t exactly wanted to watch it in the first place but his mother had insisted he witness for himself how “so many people care about you and want you to get better” when he knew she just wanted to see herself on the news, playing the role of the dutiful parent.

“Please …”

She made a harsh sucking noise, the one she always emitted when she was rolling her eyes, and a few seconds later, the screen went blank and the room was once more plunged into the silence that was only interrupted by the steady beep of Jeonghan’s heart monitor.

He didn’t want to be here.

He wasn’t hurt. He wasn’t sick. He could get up right now and walk out through those doors but then the press would be on him and all over him and sticking cameras in his face and asking him questions about the experiences he hadn’t undergone.

Plus, his father had been quick to point out that, the longer he stayed in hospital, the sorrier the jury would feel for him when they took his so-called ‘abductors’ to court.

In truth, he couldn’t care less what the jury felt. He understood that those people were terrible, that they needed to be punished for what they’d done to Noah and those other boys, but he wasn’t going to be of any use in bringing that about.

He didn’t know anything. Or, at least, he didn’t know anything that wasn’t related to the crippling sense of despair that had gripped him the moment he’d opened his eyes to his mother’s forcefully teary face and realised what had happened.

Seungcheol.

His face was seared into the back of his eyelids. He couldn’t think about anything or anyone else. It was all he could see when he closed his eyes. It was all he could see when he kept his eyes open.

Seungcheol.

Seungcheol had left him. Had drugged him, dumped him in a human trafficking ring and then disappeared.

It didn’t matter that he’d tipped off the police to his whereabouts or sent Soonyoung to periodically check on him because Seungcheol – the person he thought loved him more than anything – had drugged him, dumped him in a human trafficking ring and then disappeared.

Nothing seemed to hold any meaning anymore. Every word, every breath, every blink felt like wasted time and energy, an extra grain of sand tumbling into the bottom of the hourglass.

Seungcheol had left him. Just like that. Just tossed him aside like what they’d had together hadn’t been the most intense and beautiful and _real_ thing Jeonghan had ever experienced.

And he knew _–_ he _knew_ – why. It was exactly the same reason Junhui had packed his things and taken off the first chance he got. Seungcheol had been trying to protect him, had known that a life of running and looking over his shoulder and waiting for a bullet to pierce his skull was no way to survive.

But that didn’t matter. Because Seungcheol had left him.

He was never going to get to kiss him again. He was never going to get to hold him again. He was never going to press his ear to his chest and hear the heartbeat beneath the ribcage.

He was never going to call him ‘baby’ again.

And the others, too. Minghao, Mingyu, Seokmin, Chan, Wonwoo … Joshua. He would never know what happened to them. Whether Joshua survived, whether Minghao and Mingyu got to spend the rest of their lives together, whether Chan finally got to shoot somebody.

He would never know.

Because Seungcheol had left him.

He lifted a hand, furiously swatting at the tears on his face. He’d spent far too much time crying over the past few days, wallowing in sadness, depression, despair, helplessness. Behind the numbness, those were the only emotions left inside of him.

Beside his bed, his mother rolled her shoulders and gave an overly dramatic groan, a long-nailed set of fingers massaging the back of her neck.

“You’d think they’d make these chairs more comfortable for people coming here to see their sick family members,” she complained, and Jeonghan averted his eyes so that she wouldn’t spot him rolling them.

“You can always leave,” he mumbled, both used to and fed up of her grumbling by now.

He’d probably spent more time with his parents over the past three days than he had in the last twenty-four years.

“There are reporters outside,” she hissed back at him. “What kind of mother would I look like if I just walked out of here?”

Well, at least she was willing to admit that the only reason she was here was to make herself look good in front of the cameras. Jeonghan chose to simply ignore her, rolling onto his side and showing her his back.

The tears were flowing again.

Warm water against cooled skin, trickling over the bridge of his nose and seeping into the pillow beneath his face. And, this time, he didn’t have the energy to wipe them away. 

He wanted to blame the drug Seungcheol had given him for how emotional and confused he felt but he knew that wasn’t what was wrong. He knew it was his own heart breaking that was making him so miserable.

He knew he was crying because he was devastated. Seungcheol had lied. If he’d loved Jeonghan even a fraction as much as Jeonghan had loved him, he wouldn’t have stuck him in that trafficking ring.

He knew he was being stupid. He knew all of this had been for his own safety but he just couldn’t get over it in his head. And maybe they’d been together for too short of a time to feel this broken up about their separation, but he did.

“Jeonghan-ssi?”

Jeonghan recognised the voice of Dr Lim, the young resident he’d made his rounds with countless times before. They got along brilliantly because, despite being very accomplished for his age, Dr Lim had the same handicap Jeonghan did: he was attractive.

Tall and broad-shouldered with striking eyes and a warm smile. The superiors had often joked about the two of them whenever they were scheduled to work a shift alongside each other.

Jeonghan prayed that Lim would finally see the ridiculous needlessness of keeping him locked up in a hospital when there was literally nothing medically wrong with him. Emphasis on the ‘medically’. 

Lim circled around the bed so that he was in Jeonghan’s line of sight, a small sympathetic smile curling his lips.

“Can I leave?” the patient croaked at once, sending his friend a silent SOS with his eyes.

The doctor glanced up at something behind Jeonghan, as though asking somebody for permission, before returning his attention to his charge.

“We don’t have any real reason to keep you besides monitoring your mental stability. The nurses are still reporting that you’ve been calling the same names in your sleep. But, physically, the drug is out of your system so, as soon as your parents are ready, you can be discharged.”

Jeonghan felt the first lick of hope flaring in his heart, unaware that he was even capable of feeling such a positive emotion anymore. He should have expected his father to ruin it.

“No, no, absolutely not!”

Jeonghan hadn’t even known he was in the room but, now that he heard his voice, he presumed he was the person Lim had been glancing up at. They’d had similar conversations before and the reaction had been the same.

The patient – who had perfectly good medical training himself, he might add – would ask to leave, the doctor would explain that it was okay, and then his father would refuse to let him sign the discharge papers.

“Look at him. He’s a mess. He’s not ready to be out there.”

It was a little late to start pretending they cared now.

“Well, Mr Yoon, he’s going to have to be discharged at some point,” Lim explained, and Jeonghan could hear the exasperation in his tone. “If you’re worried about his mental state, I can give you a couple of brochures for some excellent psychiatric inpatient facilities he can be admitted to.”

Jeonghan closed his eyes. He couldn’t deal with the bickering. He was still getting headaches from time to time and they never failed to follow his father’s voice.

He blocked out the rest of their discussion and feigned sleep when they tried to engage him.

“See?” his mother whispered harshly. “Look, he lays around all day and he’s still exhausted. There’s no chance he’ll be able to function outside this hospital.”

Lim let out a very unprofessional, but very understandable, sigh and it simply alerted Jeonghan to the fact that he was making life difficult for the staff here who had to elbow their way through the reporters on a daily basis and be subjected to his parents as they worked.

Knowing how difficult it was to do their jobs without having to tell the dozens of cameras outside the building that housed Korea’s latest sob story made Jeonghan feel horrible.

Eventually, he really did fall asleep but, barely an hour later, he awoke with a gut-wrenching scream dying on his lips, shooting upright, panting, drenched in sweat, heart monitor beeping madly beside him.

The room was empty and the blinds were drawn, signifying that it was probably night time. His parents usually spent those hours at the coffee shop on the ground floor, calling their friends and complaining about how difficult it was to be a supportive parent.

It took several minutes of counting slowly to ten in his head before his heart returned to a steady rhythm and his chest no longer felt like it was being crushed in an iron press. He let out a groan, leaning forwards and raking his fingers through his hair.

He’d kept it short. And he was going to keep it short.

Seungcheol had said he liked it short.

This had to stop. Seungcheol’s face was festering inside of him, flashing in front of his eyes every time he closed them, his voice echoing through his head every time he thought about him. It felt like being drugged and abandoned all over again. 

He made a decision there and then, swinging his legs out of bed and ripping the sticky gel patches from his chest, ignoring the reddish splodges they left on his skin.

The monitor instantly began to screech in warning and a nurse stuck her head around the room to check he wasn’t dying, but she withdrew once she realised what was happening.

Jeonghan padded out to the nurse’s station and leaned heavily on the counter, taking a couple of deep breaths and trying to calm the storm of irritation in his gut.

“Rough day?” Nurse Kim chuckled, giving his arm an affectionate pat.

She was an older lady with greying hair, a wrinkled face, and a heart of pure gold. Occasionally, she would remind him of his grandmother, especially when she brought him homemade cakes. 

He didn’t want to admit it but being back at the hospital was reminding him that, although nowhere near as exciting as his life with Seungcheol would have been, he did have a chance in this world.

His boss had already stopped by and said that, once he was cleared by a psychiatrist, he could return to his residency. And although all his colleagues had probably only been clamouring over him because he was somewhat of a celebrity, but he had friends, too.

He’d thought Hyuk was his only reason to stay. He may have been wrong.

But before he could answer, he heard the rhythmic clicking of dress shoes against polished panels behind him, and Nurse Kim stiffened.

“What the hell are you doing out of bed?” came his father’s booming voice.

“It’s just a walk, Mr Yoon,” Kim defended protectively. “No harm done.”

She was trying to help but Jeonghan could only brace himself for what was to come. Because if there was one thing his father hated above all else, it was being addressed by the ‘help’.

“I’m sure you’re aware that I was speaking to my son,” he growled, words dripping in arrogance. “If you’ll kindly excuse us. Jeonghan, get back to bed.”

Jeonghan wasn’t sure where his sudden indignation came from. Maybe it was the suppressed expression of hurt on Kim’s face or maybe he was just cranky from being cooped up and fed nothing but tasteless hospital mush for days on end but, quite abruptly, he realised he’d had more than enough of his father.

“I don’t need to,” he snapped back, whirling around and glaring at the man before him. “In fact, I need to get out of here.”

Six months ago, he would have looked at the expression on his father’s face and withered in terror, but now, it just made him even angrier.

“You want to repeat that?” the man growled at him, narrowed eyes zipping around at all the people who were watching them.

Without a hint of self-consciousness or embarrassment, Jeonghan cleared his throat and parroted his earlier sentiment, “I want to get out of here. There is literally no reason for me to stay.”

He saw the fists clenching. He saw the nostrils flaring. But he didn’t scare him anymore.

“Yoon Jeonghan, so help me, God, if you don’t get your ass back in that bed …”

“What?” Jeonghan yelled, challenging his father’s discipline for the first time in his life. “You’ll ground me? Take my allowance? Put me in time out? I can assure you, _dad,_ I’ve had and done so much worse in the past twelve weeks.”

His father flinched ever so slightly and Jeonghan felt a spasm of triumph shooting up his spine. The last twelve weeks he was referring to had singularly been the best and worst of his life but his parents didn’t need to know that.

And the mere insinuation of what he’d been through was more than enough to tell his father that, if he smacked him here in the middle of this hospital, he would be labelled a monster that hit victims of human trafficking.

Because that’s what he was in their eyes.

“I’m warning you …” the respected lawyer threatened, taking a step forwards and lowering his voice, and Jeonghan couldn’t quite believe that these tactics used to work on him.

A couple of slaps was nothing compared to what he’d endured at the hands of Sungjong and the Mins.

He hadn’t survived a kidnapping, hypothermia, murdering a man, shooting another, attempting to sacrifice himself for his friend who was being tortured and meeting with the country’s most notorious mafia boss to be scared by his own fucking father. 

“Nurse Kim,” he spat, addressing the woman who was still loitering nervously behind the desk in case her step-in was needed without looking away from his dad. “Would you be so kind as to fetch Dr Lim and prepare my discharge papers?”

“Right away, Dr Yoon.” 

Dr Yoon. He was the doctor.

His earlier bravado made a hasty retreat as he remembered the reason for all of this but he didn’t falter in staring his father down until the lawyer huffed and stalked away, probably to find his mother so they could make a combined counter attack.

He had no doubt that they would spin the story to make it seem as if he had developed some form of mental illness when the press asked why he was leaving.

“Here you go,” came Nurse Kim’s smug smile, holding out the papers and the bag with his name stamped over the front.

Usually, that bag would contain what the patient was wearing when they were admitted to the hospital, but Jeonghan knew the police had taken his clothes for DNA testing and fibre analysis, and his parents hadn’t bought him any new ones since they’d expected him to be there much longer.

He nodded his thanks and then took the bag back to his room so he could wash the grime and bed sweat from his skin before shimmying into a pair of jeans that definitely were not his own and tugging on a pair of boots that, again, did not belong to him.

He ran his fingers through his hair a few times before turning to put on the hoodie that was left. A black hoodie. A familiar black hoodie.

He pushed down the thought of what that could mean. The thought that, even now, Seungcheol was looking after him. 

Wrapped in its warmth, nostrils filled with the natural and slightly soapy scent, he shouldered his way past his parents and their fruitless protests and finally escaped the hospital.

It was nearing midnight and, therefore, the parking lot was completely bare of all the reporters who’d been camping out there during the daytime in the hopes that they would get a snippet of a statement about the human trafficking survivor.

The air was so … free. Crisp and cold and his breath caught in front of his face and his skin was instantly pricked with goosebumps and he nuzzled his nose in the hoodie he was wearing and only then did he know what he wanted to do.

He had no home to go to. His apartment had been blown to pieces and there was no chance he was staying with his parents. There was only one place he’d ever felt safe and that was where he wanted to be now.

The world felt different.

Emptier and yet louder all at once.

The streets were bare, save for a few drunks making their sloppy way homewards, and it was weird to walk them without fearing that he was about to be tackled, stabbed, shot or kidnapped.

Sungjong was dead. Or, at least, in the hands of the Mins and therefore wishing he was dead. There was no longer a threat to his life. He’d finally got that freedom he’d been willing to risk his life for.

He didn’t realise just how guilty he felt for that until he found himself passing the same alleyway where Joshua had been taken.

Joshua. He would never see Joshua again. Would never check up on his wounds, assess his mental state, hold him through the nightmares and tell him that giving up that information hadn’t been his fault. He could only hope that Seungcheol and Hansol were doing that in his stead.

It felt like he was betraying him. Joshua. It felt like Jeonghan himself was pretending to have suffered, allowing himself to be treated like some kind of victim, when Joshua had been the one shot, tied up with barbed wire, stabbed, burned, tasered, had his nails removed and felt metal pins being driven into the tips of his fingers.

It was only now striking him that psychological torture must have also played a part in Joshua’s emotional fragility. Given what he knew about the boy’s past, it wouldn’t have taken much to trigger a pretty massive breakdown.

They probably touched him. Maybe more than that. But Jeonghan couldn't think about it. 

There was no more snow crunching beneath his boots as he walked. It had all melted during his stay in the hospital and, any day now, the blossoms would start painting the trees with the colours of a sunset.

The world was moving on.

Jeonghan wasn’t sure exactly what he was expecting but, as soon as he found himself faced with the six-foot wired fence and the shadowy building that stood behind it, he knew he wasn’t going to find anything.

The gate was open. The doors were unlocked. The surveillance cameras had all been deactivated, their lenses solemnly bowed towards the floor, as though mourning alongside him.

And when he stepped over the threshold, a wave of despair washed over him.

“You’re not here,” he whispered to himself, looking around at the concrete walls that used to echo with the various sounds of their inhabitants. “Are you?”

He felt like a ghost, gliding through the hallways and reminiscing about the life he had lived. The life he could have continued to live if Seungcheol had loved him as much as he’d loved Seungcheol.

All the guns were gone from the armoury. The kitchen cupboards were bare. The computers in Jihoon’s room had all been shut down and when Jeonghan tried to turn them on, they didn’t even blink.

The med bay had been emptied. The walls and floor had been scrubbed clean of any blood, the equipment had vanished, the beds had been stripped of their linen. There was no trace that any of them had ever been here.

They’d dropped off the face of the earth. They’d disappeared completely, packed up their lives and left him behind. They were together. Without him. They were smiling. Without him.

What if one of them got hurt and he wasn’t there to help? What if Seungcheol got hurt and he wasn’t there to hold his hand and kiss his forehead and call him ‘baby’ and tell him that he loved him?

Seungcheol’s room was empty, too.

The bed was just a mattress in a frame. As if they hadn’t lain there together. As if they hadn’t held each other atop it. As if Jeonghan hadn’t had his first time between its wooden walls.

They were gone. Each and every one of them.

Jeonghan had no idea how long he lay there, hands folded over his stomach, eyes closed, just wishing and hoping and praying that he could somehow feel Seungcheol by touching something he had touched.

He’d never felt more alone.

_You don’t need me. You’re strong. You’re smart. You’re incredible. You’ve never needed anybody._

That’s what he’d thought. He’d thought he was alone in this world, destined to live and die without anybody by his side, but then he’d met Seungcheol and he’d realised just how desperately he _had_ needed somebody.

But that somebody was gone, and he wasn’t coming back.

_You’re going to re-enrol as a med student and you’re going to become a trauma surgeon. You’re going to find a new boyfriend, you’re going to get married and you’re going to be brilliant._

Seungcheol’s last request, whispered in his ear as the drug in his blood slowly dragged him down into the depths of darkness. Seungcheol’s last words to him before he closed his eyes and allowed himself to slip away. Seungcheol’s last declaration of love.

That’s what all of it – _all of it –_ had been about.

Refusing to kill him, kissing him to distract him from his panic attack, sprinting to the dungeons to save him from their captive, throwing himself at Sungjong’s feet because the thought of handing Jeonghan over was just too terrible to comprehend.

Sending him away so that he would be safe.

He’d thought that he’d been kicked out of their lives because Seungcheol hadn’t loved him as much as he had loved Seungcheol, but only now was he realising that wasn’t exactly true.

Seungcheol had loved him just as much. No … Seungcheol had loved him more. More than Jeonghan could have ever begun to understand. Seungcheol had loved him so much that he’d been willing to sacrifice that love to keep him safe.

How could he blame him for that?

“Okay, Cheol …” he whispered into the silence. “Okay.”

He would continue to live so long as Seungcheol did. So long as Seungcheol was breathing, he would breathe, too. For Seungcheol. Because of Seungcheol. Because of how much Seungcheol had loved him.

He couldn’t even hear his voice anymore. His face was already starting to blur. He was trickling through Jeonghan’s fingers like water in cupped hands and, no matter how desperately he tried to hold on, his palms were getting dryer.

And so were his eyes. He couldn’t even cry for Seungcheol anymore.

And that was how he knew that it was time to leave.

The bedroom door gave a softened click behind him. His footsteps on the stairs bounced off the walls. The outside world was so different, so much scarier and yet so much more exciting at the same time, and Jeonghan couldn’t help but pause on the threshold.

 _One more step,_ he told himself. _One more step and it’ll all be over. One more step and you’re officially saying goodbye._

He closed his eyes.

“I loved you …”

And that, as they say, was that. 


	29. Epilogue

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> One last hurrah! Here we go!

“Wake up, angel.”

Even in his groggy state between conscious and not, Jeonghan felt a sleepy smile stretch over his face as he opened his eyes, practically purring at the sound of the harsh Daegu dialect and the feeling of warm breath on his ear.

He flexed his arms slowly and then rolled over to gaze lovingly up at the face of his fiancé above him.

“Morning,” he sighed, nuzzling his face into the white sleep shirt.

“Morning, angel,” came the soft chuckle. “You sleep okay?”

Fingers carded gently through the thick brown hair that just about reached his shoulders and was now a lot fuller thanks to his partner’s intervention. Apparently the products he’d been using were pretty much hair pesticides. 

“Mmhmm,” Jeonghan hummed blissfully as fingernails scratched his scalp.

“I love you, Yoon Jeonghan.”

No matter how many times he heard those words, it never felt any different. Always breath-taking, always tear-jerking, always desperately needed and so gratefully received that Jeonghan knew he would take a bullet for this man.

He looked up, eyelids barely cracked open, and met the gaze of the person he was finally going to get to call his husband.

“I love you, too, Kim Kibum.”

His fiancé gave one of those giddy grins that Jeonghan loved so much and dropped a kiss onto his forehead before slipping out of bed, probably to start the coffee-making process. The guy couldn’t live without the caffeine in his system.

Kibum was an editor for the company that had published Jeonghan’s book. It had been his therapist’s idea to write about what had happened to him, and he hadn’t seen the harm in it, so he used a pseudonym and released the story as a work of fiction.

He hadn’t expected it to become so successful.

Kibum had taken a liking to Jeonghan and stuck around even when each and every one of his advances had been shut down. Jeonghan had been a complete mess when they’d met each other but Kibum had been his saving grace, keeping him sane and safe during the last few months of his residency and then throughout his trauma surgeon training.

Somewhere along the line, they’d become inseparable and the rest had kind of written itself.

They dated for a year before Kibum moved in and then, the same night the book had been stocked in over 150 stores around the country, he’d proposed.

Jeonghan had never addressed the fact that Kibum’s family title was Kim and that he was from Daegu, meaning he was very likely from one of the major mafia families, and he chose to ignore the guns he’d found hidden strategically around the house and the obviously menacing nature of all that was Kim Kibum.

As far as Jeonghan knew, the Kim family were very different from the Mins and the Chois. Their power came from business ownership and collecting a cut whenever illegal activities were performed on their premises.

He knew that Kibum knew that he knew. He’d read his book, would have seen the infamous war played out as fiction in the pages for what it truly was, but neither of them had ever addressed the fact that they’d come from the same background.

And Jeonghan was okay with that.

The bed was steadily growing colder from the lack of an extra body so he finally forced himself out of bed and headed to the kitchen where the coffee was already set out and a plate of buttered toast sat in the centre of the island.

Kibum was humming some song as he scrambled the eggs and Jeonghan sat down to watch him, sipping on his caffeinated beverage and cupping his chin in his hand.

The red dragon on his boyfriend’s shoulder blade was muted beneath his white T-Shirt, another thing Jeonghan deliberately chose to ignore.

His fiancé was beautiful and charismatic and blunt and funny and passionate, all features that had eventually sold Jeonghan on becoming his boyfriend despite the promise he’d made to himself that he would never again allow himself to be hurt in that way.

Kibum had the same self-assurance and swagger to his gait that Seungcheol had and, in the beginning, it had made Jeonghan cry to his therapist about how horrible a person he must be to use Kibum as a replacement for the person who – in the eyes of the rest of the world – had abducted and abused him.

But, over time, he had come to realise that he truly did love Kibum for who he was and not who he reminded him of. He loved him with his all. His everything. His entire being. Even if he shared a couple of similarities with his first love.

His first love.

‘You never forget your first’.

He had a better understanding of that phrase now. His first kiss, his first time, his first boyfriend, his first gun … his first murder.

“Order up!” Kibum announced playfully as he valeted the pot of eggs over to the counter, slipping off the flowery oven mittens Jeonghan always teased him about and running a hand through his jet-like hair.

He had thick black brows, one of which was adorned with a large and prominent scar that took a chunk of the little bristly hairs with it. Yet another aspect Jeonghan had never and probably would never address.

“I’ve got you down for a book signing on Friday,” Kibum mumbled around a mouthful of eggs. “Do you think you can get your work schedule adjusted?”

“Sure. I’ll ask Dr Kim.”

Dr Kim as in Dr Kim Seokjin, the one and only, the Mins’ personal physician and now his overseer at Seoul Private. He had transferred there only a few months after Jeonghan had started working again, and he’d known better than to ask questions.

So he’d acted just as oblivious as everybody else when the news was announced but, sometimes, Jin would send him a wink and Jeonghan wanted to believe that was his way of saying that everything was okay.

He headed to the hospital after breakfast. His shift wasn’t scheduled until later that day but he wanted to finish a few surgery reports, speak to Jin in person and meet the new Chairperson they’d assigned to the board.

The thing about private hospitals was that board members changed frequently enough to ensure that nobody really knew who was in charge.

Upon arrival, Jeonghan found Jin first, chatting with Dr Lim at the nurse’s station, and one of those flawless beaming smiles spread over his face as he saw the newcomer approaching.

“Now, this is dedication,” he chuckled.

Jeonghan did not miss the way the nurses’ station suddenly became a whole lot busier as the female staff members tried to find any excuse to be near the trio of attractive faces. 

“I just wanted to ask you if I could rejig one of my shifts and … well … the new chairperson …?”

“Oh, you haven’t met him yet?” Lim laughed. “He’s going to raise our rankings for the most attractive staff in all of Seoul.”

Jeonghan didn’t miss the peculiar expression Jin sent him but he didn’t get a chance to address it before he was being invited into his superior’s office, shooting something about a Mrs Kwan’s surgery over his shoulder at Lim before he closed the door.

“So what’s this about the shift?”

“Oh. I just need Friday morning for my book signing. Kibum scheduled it without me knowing. I’m sorry.”

“Don’t worry about it,” Jin dismissed with a wave of his hand, circling around his desk and settling into the large leather chair. “I’ll get it covered.”

Jeonghan let out a long sigh, “I owe you one.”

Jin leant back in his chair and crossed his arms over his broad chest, surveying the man before him with an uninterpretable kind of analysis going on behind his eyes. Jeonghan’s brain did a slight stutter, as it always did, whenever he was in Jin’s presence.

He eyed the reddish dragon wrapped around the doctor’s wrist, visible just beneath the unbuttoned cuffs of his shirt sleeves. He wanted to ask. He needed to ask. To  _ know.  _ He’d had five years of not knowing.

He still saw them in his dreams. He still ran into Kihyun at the grocery store, he still swore he spotted Minghao on busy street corners, he was sure he’ encountered Seungkwan around his club and he knew Soonyoung had been there, watching, as he’d walked to his car a few nights ago.

He felt them. They were still around, still looking out for him, and he didn’t know what to make of it.

Even Jin was here and he’d never plucked up the courage to ask why. He just pretended he didn’t see them, he pretended he was still dealing with his psychosis, he pretended he wasn’t upset that, with everybody he’d seen lurking in the shadows, Seungcheol hadn’t been one of them.

But he couldn’t. He’d moved on. He’d promised himself. So he let out another sigh and rose from his chair.

“Thanks again, Dr Kim.”

He pretended he didn’t see Jin’s sad smile as he left the room.

He spent more time in the hospital than he’d originally intended and before he’d realised how long he’d been wandering around, carrying out various tasks, it was already only an hour before his next shift started so it made more sense to tell Kibum he wouldn’t be home until later and stay.

And he was still yet to meet the new chairperson. 

“Dr Yoon, are you there?”

Nurse Kim wrapped her knuckles on the door to his office and shouldered her way in with a large box in her arms.

“I baked far too many of these yesterday,” she said with a smile, setting her latest offering of cupcakes and cookies on his desk. “I thought you could use some sugar.”

Kibum would be ecstatic.

“You spoil me, Nurse Kim,” Jeonghan laughed, giving the nurse’s hand a squeeze.

After witnessing his little spat with his father in the middle of the ward almost five years ago, the woman had practically adopted him. She was everything his mother hadn’t been and more. So, so much more.

“Have you met him?” she asked, raking her greying hair back into a sleek bun.

“Who?”

“The new chairman. He’s a peculiar one,” she chuckled, before leaning forwards and whispering conspiratorially. “But very handsome.”

“I’ll be sure to tell my fiancé,” Jeonghan smirked. “No, I haven’t met him yet. Maybe we’ll run into each other if he’s still here during my shift.”

There had been an awful lot of buzz about the new addition to the board and Jeonghan was a little disappointed that he hadn’t had a chance to make acquaintances but he’d been far too busy to dwell.

In typical Seoul Private fashion, his shift began with broken bones, a car accident, a pretty severe allergic reaction and a shooting. Technically, he should have only been doing trauma surgeries but, when there was no need, he always came back to the emergency room.

“Great work in there, Dr Yoon,” his colleague clapped him on the shoulder as the two of them practically staggered out of the operating room and ripped off their surgical caps.

It had been a gruelling eight-hour surgery as they floundered and flailed to save the life of a young boy with seven bullet holes in his abdomen and a stab wound to the chest.

For several terrifying moments when his gloves had been slick with blood and the heart monitor was screaming at him in warning, he hadn’t thought the kid was going to make it, but they’d finally got him stabilised. 

“Thanks. You, too.”

“Dr Kim was right to give you more duties around here,” the assisting surgeon continued. “I’ll admit, he saw something in you that the rest of us didn’t.”

Jeonghan had heard it all before. Everyone had been surprised when he’d proven himself to be more than just another pretty face.

Raking his fingers through his sweat-soaked hair, he headed back to his office with heavy footsteps and a sinking heart. Saving a life that had been in as much danger as that one had could never be celebrated so long as paperwork existed in the world.

His phone was sitting on his desk, blinking with several messages, all from his mother.

She and his father divorced about two years previously and, since then, his mother had been just a little more palatable. If not still a bitch. He didn’t bother calling her back, deciding to message her later since she knew that, if it was an emergency, she could call the direct number for the nurse’s station.

There was a knock on the door before it opened and whoever it was let themselves in. It was a regular enough occurrence that Jeonghan didn’t stop scribbling his paragraph as he called out, “Have a seat. I’ll be with you in a second.”

He heard the chair on the other side of the desk creak as the person lowered themselves into it and, even though they hadn’t said so much as a ‘good evening’, the air felt different. Almost … familiar.

He dropped his pen, quickly glossing over his report before knocking the papers into a file and clicking his teeth.

“Right, what can I do for you?”

He looked up and the world stopped moving.

Junhui was grinning back at him.

His hair was shorter and coloured an ashy brown. He was wearing a pale blue dress shirt and his ankle was crossed casually over his knee as he reclined comfortably in Jeonghan’s guest chair.

“Jun …”

“Hi there, Hannie.”

“It’s you … isn’t it?” Jeonghan whispered, afraid to raise his voice in case it broke whatever spell had put Junhui in front of him. “The new chairman?”

“It’s me,” came the confirmation, in that same sing-song tone that Jeonghan had come to associate with the almighty being that was Wen Junhui. “Seokjin pulled a few strings and now I’m Moon Junhoe, a functioning member of society.”

“I can’t believe this …”

It was impossible. Junhui had run. He’d needed to run. To escape the people who were following him. Were they dead now? Had he killed them? Or were they no longer after him? How could he be here when he’d been in so much danger that he’d had to leave all those years ago without even saying goodbye?

“Believe it, Hannie. You’re stuck with me.”

He wasn’t leaving. He was … He was staying. Jeonghan had spent five years wondering if he was even alive and now he was sitting right in front of him, smiling, and promising never to move away again.

“It’s been a while,” Junhui continued, pointing at the ring on Jeonghan’s finger. “Care to bring me up to speed?”

Jeonghan wasn’t ashamed to admit that there had been tears in his eyes as he and his friend – his  _ friend  _ – sat there together for the first time in half a decade and talked, just talked, like they’d used to and, for what it was worth, Junhui apparently wasn’t quite as clueless as he’d first made out to be.

He’d read Jeonghan’s book, he knew about Kibum, he’d done a background check on Kibum and, even though Jeonghan told him he didn’t want to know what had gone on in his fiancé’s former life, he’d said he felt reassured knowing that his precious Hannie was being protected by somebody who certainly knew their way around a firearm. 

It all felt like a dream and, any minute now, Jeonghan was waiting to wake up and once again find Junhui no longer a part of his life. But minutes turned into an hour, and Junhui was still here.

He wasn’t surprised when the peculiar boy refused to elaborate on where he’d been, why he’d left and who was after him, but it didn’t even matter anymore.

If Junhui was here then he was safe.

Of course, their reunion had been cut short when the new chairman of the board was called away for some sort of meeting, and Jeonghan was left slumped in his desk chair, a giddy kind of gloopy euphoria washing over him.

It was several moments before he registered what time it was and several more before his overly dramatic yawning alerted him to the fact that he was beyond exhausted.

It was three in the morning and the cold hit him like a train the moment he stepped out into the midnight air, chastising himself for not moving his car closer to the building before he started his shift.

He looped his scarf around his neck a couple of times, pulled it over his chin, adjusted his box of sweets then started to trudge his way through the snow.

He always remembered nights like this. How he used to call Hyuk on his lengthier walks. He remembered that this was exactly how he’d ended up in the singularly most terrifying position of his life. 

And how that singularly most terrifying position had led to the singularly most incredible experience.

He was almost to his car when he heard the low murmur of voices.

It was all too familiar.

Digging his hands into his pockets, one set of fingers closing around his keys and the other around the handle of his switchblade, he sped up his pace and, in no time at all, he was at that all-too familiar bridge.

There was a car parked on the opposite side of the road to his own but he didn’t look up as he shuffled forwards, wrenched open the door and leapt inside. He fumbled with the lock and then pulled out his cell phone, just to put his mind at ease.

“Hello?” the groggy voice answered.

“Baby? I … It’s me …”

“Angel?” came Kibum’s voice, suddenly all the more alert, and Jeonghan could actually hear him scrambling out of bed. “Is everything okay?”

He was always like that. Always ready. Always willing to drive his fist into a jaw or twist a blade into a heart if that was what it would take to keep his angel safe.

“Yeah …” Jeonghan gasped out, trying to regulate his breathing as best he could. “I … uh … I just parked kind of far and I got spooked on my way to the car.”

“Oh …” The relief was audible. “I’m sorry, angel. Do you need me to come out and meet you?”

Jeonghan sighed, feeling more than a little pathetic, but this particular street corner held some truly horrible memories in the back of his mind, always willing to jump forwards when he least expected.

He glanced up at the car on the other side of the street and noticed that there were a couple of house lights on. If something happened and his knife couldn’t defend him, he would scream and instantly be heard. 

“No, it’s fine … I’ll be home in a few.”

“I love you, angel. I’ll be waiting.”

There they were again. Those words. They never grew old. He never grew tired of them. His smile never failed to grow whenever he heard them.

“I love you, too, baby. See you soon.”

He ended the call and tossed the device into the passenger seat, once again directing his attention over to the other vehicle as curiosity prickled at the back of his mind.

There were two people standing in front of the open trunk, conversing in soft undertones and fiddling with something in a large duffel bag. They were both facing straight ahead but the side profile of the one closest to Jeonghan seemed achingly familiar.

His chest tightened as the man circled around to the driver’s seat. His fingers curled around the handle and then he stopped and he turned around and their gazes locked.

And Jeonghan found himself staring into the fathomless eyes of Choi Seungcheol.

There was no surprise on his face. In fact, his expression was completely unreadable for several long, paralysing moments before it turned sad. A soft smile quirked his lips and all Jeonghan could do was stare dumbly.

His breath was caught somewhere between his lungs and throat and the iron bands around his chest only squeezed tighter as the second man reached out to rest a hand against Seungcheol’s shoulder.

Joshua.

Even from across the dimly-lit street, Jeonghan could see the scar over his eye, the way he favoured his right leg when he took a step, the turtleneck sweater that concealed his throat from view, and the radiant smile on his face. 

He waved, a little shyly, at Jeonghan’s stunned expression through the window before giving Seungcheol’s shoulder a squeeze and opening the car door, clearly indicating to his leader that it was time to leave.

There was the squeak of tyres on tarmac and then they were gone.

Hot tears were rolling over Jeonghan’s cheeks before he could process what had just happened. In reality, the entire exchange could have only lasted a few seconds but it had felt like hours, just them staring at each other, before they drove away.

No …

No, no, no …

No! They couldn’t leave!

Jeonghan fumbled with the keys, desperately battling with the ignition in an attempt to get his engine started despite how blurred his vision was and how fast his heart was racing and how frantically his thoughts were flitting around his head.

Joshua.

Seungcheol.

Joshua was alive.

Seungcheol hadn’t forgotten him.

He had a chance.

There was still a chance.

He thrust the gear stick forward, released the hand break and prepared to take off after them just as his ringtone sliced through the tension in the air, startling him so violently that he actually yelped in shock.

Kibum’s face lit up the screen.

Jeonghan’s head snapped up just in time to see the tail lights of Seungcheol’s car disappearing from view at the end of the street, more tears flowing from their ducts as he answered the call.

“H … hello?”

“Hey,” came the sleepy mumble. “I know you’re driving but have you eaten? I can get up and make you something.”

Jeonghan had to pull the phone away from his ear and clamp a hand over his mouth so Kibum wouldn’t hear the strangled sob he couldn’t keep at bay any longer.

He was ashamed of himself. Why was he still chasing Seungcheol after all these years when he had Kibum at home? Sweet, thoughtful, beautiful Kibum who knew all too well that he’d been playing second to Seungcheol for years and yet still loved Jeonghan with everything he had inside him.

Jeonghan would die for Kibum. There was no denying it. But Seungcheol … Seungcheol …

Seungcheol had moved on.

“It’s okay,” he croaked into the speaker, trying to keep the crack from his voice. “I’ll eat in the morning.”

“Are you sure? It’s no problem …”

“I’m sure, Ki.”

And he was. He’d never been surer of anything.

“I love you.”

It had been five years. That was long enough.

“I’ll be there soon.”

He hung up the phone and drove home.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you, everybody, so much for all the love and support! It's been so much fun for MinYun and I to read all your comments, theories and opinions. We are in the process of writing a prequel, the first chapter of which should be up in a few days, so if you still have any questions about the story or the characters, we hope they will be answered there. Stick around for that!
> 
> Once again, thank you so much and stay safe!  
> Anonymous_Introvert and MinYun


	30. Prequel

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Prequel is here.

**Hello all.**

**Just adding this chapter to inform you all that the Prequel to Poison or Medicine,**

**Born From Blood has started going up.**

**we hope all your questions will be answered.**

**this Fic will follow Seungcheol as he builds his team, a few faves will make cameos and a few backstories will be cleared up as well as a surprise ending that we hope you all stay tuned for.**

** To clarify... there will be no Sequel to this fic. after the prequel, it's finished. **

**Thank you for all your Support on this fic, hope to see you all on the next one.**

**MinYun and Anonymous_Introvert78**

**Author's Note:**

> Comments and Kudos really help with our motivation and confidence so, if you have a spare moment, let us know what you think! Have a good day :)

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Poison or Medicine Alternative Ending](https://archiveofourown.org/works/24802036) by [definitionofnormal](https://archiveofourown.org/users/definitionofnormal/pseuds/definitionofnormal)




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